Partner Profiles: Small Area Health Statistics Unit of Imperial
College London (SAHSU) The main aim of Imperial College of
London’s Small Area Health Statistics Unit (SAHSU) has been to
assess the risk posed by environmental factors to the health of
the population, with an emphasis on the use and interpretation
of routine health statistics. SAHSU was established in 1987,
following a recommendation of an enquiry headed by Sir Douglas
Black into the incidence of leukemia in children and young
adults near the Sellafield nuclear plant in Cumbria, UK.
Substantial efforts continue to maintain and develop the SAHSU
databases and to further develop spatial analysis methods.
Reports of potentially raised rates of disease around
environmental sources or in specific areas can cause great
public anxiety and need to be handled efficiently and
effectively by the authorities concerned. A common part of the
response to such reports is to use routinely collected
statistics to establish whether rates of the disease are higher