THE steep drop in premature deaths from coronary heart disease started to level out last year following the successes of the past 20 years, figures released by the Scottish Office showed yesterday.
Deaths in under-65s fell from 61 per 100,000 population in 1994 to 60 last year. This compares with a spectacular drop from 1993, when the figure was 71.4 per thousand.
However, thanks to this, and to the steeply downward trend up until then, the reduction in CHD deaths in this age group is still ahead of the target set in the Government policy document, Scotland's Health, a Challenge to Us All, published in 1992.
This aimed for mortality to fall from its 1990 rate of 77 per 100,000 to 46 per 100,000 by the year 2000.
Yesterday's report from the Scottish Health Minister, Lord James Douglas-Hamilton, highlighted smoking among young people as a major obstacle to continued improvement in heart disease and cancer mortality, which is also showing a decrease.
Smoking in the 12-24 age group has fallen by only 2% from 30% in 1986 to 28% in 1994. A further reduction to 21% is required by the year 2000 to meet the ``Scotland's Health'' target.
However, smoking among adults aged 25-65 has fallen from 40% in 1986 to 32% in 1994, which was the target for 2000.
Cancer deaths in the under-65s fell from 104 per 100,000 population in 1986 to 93 per 100,000 in 1995 - also a decrease from the 1994 level of 95 per 100,000. The target for 2000 requires a further drop to 88 deaths per 100,000 population.
Progress towards the other targets is as follows:
Dental health - the latest figures (for 1993) for 45/54-year-olds show, that 15% were without their own teeth compared with 33% in 1988. Among children aged five, some 38% had no fillings, cavities, or extracted teeth in 1993. The latest figures (1995) for this group show an improvement to 41% - still well below the target.
Alcohol misuse - the latest figures from the 1994 General Household Survey, while showing a marginal improvement of some 0.5% since 1992, indicated that 16% of men and women were still exceeding the recommended levels. A reduction to 12% is required to meet the target.
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