Factor analysis of the disabilities of the elderly with the aid of an electronic calculator.

There have been a number of surveys of old people by doctors (Walker, 1947; Sheldon, 1948; Adams and Cheeseman, 1951; Simonds and Stewart, 1954), but no survey that we know of has attempted full medical examination of a sample in a localized community.* Early in 1952 we thought it would be a useful piece of work to determine accurately the diseases and disabilities of a sample of the men and women 60 years of age and over in a circumscribed area. We chose the villages of Tunstall and Silksworth in Co. Durham, which together are typical of a mixed urban community with an average normal healthy population and with housing conditions and wages just a shade higher than average. The estimated population is 7,500; the acreage is 1,720; there are 2,300 houses; the number of persons per house is a fraction over 3 but under the expected average of 3j. These conditions are a little better than usual, but to offset this there are several small groups of miners' houses with twelve houses to the acre, which are small and poorly built. For the whole area the death rate and incidence of infectious disease are about the same as for England and Wales. The workers are employed mostly in the coal mining and shipping industries and in small shops.