This category includes a range of disorders which affect the blood.

See also Map 58 Leukaemia.

Deaths from this cause are a little less common in the more affluent parts of the south and a little more common in some parts of some of Britain’s larger cities. However, average rates are found up and down the country.

One of the diseases included here is sickle cell anaemia, which is considerably more common in those of Black African and Black Caribbean ethnicities, and so if we were to map that alone it would reflect the geography of these ethnic groups in Britain.

Other diseases in this category are more often the end result of some disease rather than diseases in their own right. They include:

1. • aplastic anaemia: a condition where the bone marrow does not produce sufficient new cells to replenish blood cells;

2. • disseminated intravascular coagulation: where the blood starts to coagulate throughout the whole body;

3. • agranulocytosis: a reduction in the number of white blood cells in the body.

The age–sex bar chart shows that more older women are affected by this cause than are men.