Excess winter deaths

The Excess Winter Mortality Index (EWM Index) is the excess winter deaths expressed as a ratio of the expected deaths based on the non-winter death rate for the period 1.8.04 to 31.7.07

Office for National Statistics (ONS)

Association of Public Health Observatories (APHO)

http://www.apho.org.uk/resource/view.aspx?RID=105001

England

Local Authority District (LAD), County/Unitary Authority, Government Office Region (GOR), National

2006-2009

2005-2007 to 2006-2009

Annually

Administrative data

The EWM Index will be partly dependent on the proportion of older people in the population as most excess winter deaths effect older people (there is no standardisation in this calculation by age or any other factor). Confidence intervals apply

EWM Index was calculated based on the ?ONS Method« which defines the winter period as December to March, and the non-winter period as August to November of that same year and April to July of the following year. This winter period was selected as they are the months which over the last 50 years have displayed above average monthly mortality. However, if mortality starts to increase prior to this, for example in November, the number of deaths in the non-winter period will increase, which in turn will decrease the estimate of excess winter mortality.

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