PEOPLE in East Lancashire are around 20 per cent more likely to die early because the area suffers from poor housing, bad diet and low wages.

Newly released figures for 1998 to 2000 today lift the lid on the perils of living in East Lancashire - with residents in five of its six boroughs up to 24 per cent more likely to die from diseases.

Health officials say the figures, due to be published by the area's three Primary Care Trusts later this month, reflect the high levels of deprivation within East Lancashire, and the fact that generations of families have grown up in poor quality housing.

The statistics have been calculated using the Government's 'standardised mortality ratio' - a figure which enables doctors to establish the likelihood of death based on local figures.

Only the Ribble Valley performs better than the national average, with residents in the affluent borough five per cent less likely to die at any point than the national average.

Worst off are people living in Blackburn with Darwen, who are 24per cent more likely to die early than people elsewhere in the UK. In Hyndburn, that figure drops to 22per cent, in Burnley to 17per cent, Pendle 14 per cent and Rossendale 12per cent.

Coronary heart disease is 26per cent more likely to affect someone in East Lancashire than nationally, and that figure rises to 38per cent in Pendle, 32per cent in Blackburn, 29per cent in Hyndburn, 25per cent in Pendle and 23per cent in Burnley.

Ribble Valley residents, however, are 2per cent less likely to die from heart disease.

Dr Steven Morton, director of public health at Hyndburn and Ribble Valley Primary Care Trust, said: "A lot of it comes down to the fact people are born in poor standard housing, leave school early and earn a low wage.

"They traditionally have had a poor diet, and their children have a low birth weight, which continues the cycle.

"Things like circulatory disease are triggered by surroundings, such as the quality of the air, and polluted air wouldn't just stop at an urban town like Blackburn's border, it would travel into the Ribble Valley, hence the rise there as well."

Dr Ellis Friedman, Public Health Director of Burnley, Pendle and Rossendale Primary Care Trust, says: "We know the direct causes of coronary heart disease, with factors such as poor diet, smoking and lack of exercise, as well as an association of poverty with heart diseases."