Winter mortality in elderly people in Britain: Action on outdoor cold stress is needed to reduce winter mortality

EDITOR-The paper by Wilkinson et al, on people aged over 75, makes a useful addition to the evidence that winter mortality in Britain is now not caused primarily by deprivation and failure to heat homes. 1 In addition to other evidence they quote, a recent study on younger people provides positive indications that cold exposure outside the home causes winter mortality regardless of economic status. 2 Manual workers (social class 5) of working age (50-59) in Britain had low cold related mortality compared with any other class.