Gerry Mccartney
Biographic Data
| ID | 328237 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Gerry Mccartney |
| GIVEN NAMES | Gerry |
| FAMILY NAME | Mccartney |
| SIGNATURE | MCCARTNEY G |
| AFFILIATIONS | Public Health Scotland |
| ORCID | 0000-0001-6341-3521 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 60 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 98 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 60 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2008 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2026 |
| H-INDEX | 6 |
Social Murder in the Department of Health
In this article, we discuss the evidence of what has caused life expectancy trends across the UK to stop improving after 2012. This evidence has already been extensively reviewed in a report published by the Glasgow Centre for Population Health (GCPH) and subsequently as a book ( McCartney, et al, 2022b ; Walsh & McCartney, 2025 ). In order to bring the evidence to life, and to other audiences, we present the evidence through an imagined conversa…
Renoviction’ and health
Mitigating climate change requires us to rapidly improve the energy efficiency of our existing housing, a process known as ‘retrofit’. However, this creates the risk of ‘renoviction’, whereby tenants are moved or evicted to allow these renovations to take place. Understanding the potential for renoviction to undermine the potential population health benefits of retrofit is an important new area for research
What is the relationship between changes in the size of economies and mortality derived population health measures in high income countries
Social security cuts and life expectancy
BACKGROUND: The UK Government's 'welfare reform' programme included reductions to social security payments, phased in over the financial years 2011/2012-2015/2016. Previous studies of social security cuts and health outcomes have been restricted to analysing single UK countries or single payment types (eg, housing benefit). We examined the association between all social security cuts fully implemented by 2016 and life expectancy, for local author…
The Fundamentals of Public Ownership
Public ownership has emerged as desirable and achievable in the United Kingdom in the 2020s. The ongoing water crisis in England and concerns about ‘greedflation’ in sectors such as electricity and gas following recent price rises have encouraged interest in public ownership. Informed discussion is compromised, however, by a gap in public knowledge. This partly stems from the distance of time, a generation or more, since publicly owned enterprise…
How to measure progress towards a wellbeing economy
The world is experiencing multiple intersecting urgent and existential crises, which have profound and inequitable implications for population health. Arguably, the design of the current, dominant economic system and its antecedents is the root cause of these crises, as it externalises impacts on nature, climate and population health, exacerbates inequalities, and rewards extraction, rent-seeking and social hierarchy. A ‘wellbeing economy’, which…
Culture as an objective for and a means of achieving a Wellbeing Economy
The world faces multiple intersecting crises, several of which are existential. The current dominant economic design is at their root cause, leading to increased advocacy for alternative economic approaches, including Wellbeing Economy. However, the role of culture, both as an objective and as a means of achieving a Wellbeing Economy, is largely absent. In this article, we review how culture has been misunderstood as being dependent on the attain…
Trends in psychological distress in Great Britain, 1991–2019
BACKGROUND: Previously improving UK mortality trends stalled around 2012, with evidence implicating economic policy as the cause. This paper examines whether trends in psychological distress across three population surveys show similar trends. METHODS: We report the percentages reporting psychological distress (4+ in the 12-item General Health Questionnaire) from Understanding Society (Great Britain, 1991-2019), Scottish Health Survey (SHeS, 1995…
How do income changes impact on mental health and wellbeing for working-age adults? A systematic review and meta-analysis
Falling down the rabbit hole? Methodological, conceptual and policy issues in current health inequalities research
Persistent health inequalities pose a challenge to researchers and policymakers. Decades of research have illuminated mechanisms that underlie health inequalities, now we must move beyond these observations to enable policies that can reduce them. In this paper, we highlight tensions in the field of health inequalities research regarding the relationship between social determinants and health outcomes, and the effectiveness of welfare policies. W…
Widening of inequalities in Covid-19 years of life lost from 2020 to 2021
BACKGROUND: Previous studies have highlighted the large extent of inequality in adverse COVID-19 health outcomes. Our aim was to monitor changes in overall, and inequalities in, COVID-19 years of life lost to premature mortality (YLL) in Scotland from 2020 and 2021. METHODS: Cause-specific COVID-19 mortality counts were derived at age group and area deprivation level using Scottish death registrations for 2020 and 2021. YLL was estimated by multi…
Glossary
As we emerge from the COVID-19 pandemic, there is an increasing focus on how the economy is rebuilt and the impact this will have on population health. Many of the economic policy proposals being discussed have their own vocabulary, which is not always understood in the same way within or between disciplines. This glossary seeks to provide a common language and concise summary of the key economic terminology relevant for policymakers and public h…
Trends in healthy life expectancy in the age of austerity
BACKGROUND: Worrying changes in life expectancy trends have been observed recently in the UK, largely attributed to austerity policies introduced over the last decade. To incorporate changes to quality, rather than just length of, life, our aim was to describe trends in healthy life expectancy (HLE) for the relevant period. METHODS: In the absence of available long-term trends, we calculated new estimates of HLE for Scotland for the period 1995-2…
Bearing the burden of austerity
BACKGROUND: Mortality rates across the UK stopped improving in the early 2010s, largely attributable to UK Government's 'austerity' policies. Such policies are thought to disproportionately affect women in terms of greater financial impact and loss of services. The aim here was to investigate whether the mortality impact of austerity-in terms of when rates changed and the scale of excess deaths-has also been worse for women. METHODS: All-cause mo…
Is austerity a cause of slower improvements in mortality in high-income countries? A panel analysis
Stalled mortality trends and austerity are widespread phenomena across high-income countries. Austerity is likely to be a cause of stalled mortality trends. Governments should consider alternative economic policy approaches if these harmful population health impacts are to be avoided
Approaches to triangulation of alcohol data in Scotland
Rehm et al . highlight the ongoing difficulties in accurately estimating alcohol consumption using surveys. Population surveys, in particular, suffer from non‐response and sampling bias, which affects their representativeness, but they are one of the few ways of estimating differences in consumption across population subgroups. In this article, we highlight different approaches that have been taken in Scotland to try to overcome these problems, f…
Inequalities in population health loss by multiple deprivation
The substantial population health impact of COVID-19 in Scotland was not shared equally across areas experiencing different levels of deprivation. The extent of inequality due to COVID-19 was similar to averting all annual DALYs due to diabetes. In the wider context of population health loss, overall ill-health and mortality due to COVID-19 was, at most, a fifth of the annual population health loss due to inequalities in multiple deprivation. Imp…
Trends in infant mortality and stillbirth rates in Scotland by socio-economic position, 2000–2018
Whilst Scotland has experienced downward trends in IMR and stillbirth rates between 2000 and 2018, the persistence of socio-economic inequalities and suggestion that mortality rates amongst the most deprived groups may be worsening warrants further action to improve maternal health and strengthen support for families with young children
Spatial and temporal inequalities in mortality in the USA, 1968–2016
Previous UK and European research has highlighted important variations in mortality between populations after adjustment for key determinants such as poverty and deprivation. The aim here was to establish whether similar populations could be identified in the US, and to examine changes over time. We employed Poisson regression models to compare county-level mortality with national rates between 1968 and 2016, adjusting for poverty, education, rac…
Knowing the goal
OBJECTIVE: Inequality is deeply embedded in our economic structures-it is necessary to address these economic inequalities if we are to reduce health inequalities. An inclusive economic approach was conceptualised as a way to reduce these economic inequalities, although the attributes of this approach are unclear. Public health practitioners are increasingly asked to provide a health perspective on the economic recovery plans in the light of the …
Scaling Covid-19 against inequalities
Background The mortality impact of COVID-19 has thus far been described in terms of crude death counts. We aimed to calibrate the scale of the modelled mortality impact of COVID-19 using age-standardised mortality rates and life expectancy contribution against other, socially determined, causes of death in order to inform governments and the public. Methods We compared mortality attributable to suicide, drug poisoning and socioeconomic inequality…
The contribution of changes to tax and social security to stalled life expectancy trends in Scotland
Background Life expectancy (LE) improvements have stalled, and UK tax and welfare ‘reforms’ have been proposed as a cause. We estimated the effects of tax and welfare reforms from 2010/2011 to 2021/2022 on LE and inequalities in LE in Scotland. Methods We applied a published estimate of the cumulative income impact of the reforms to the households within Scottish Index of Multiple Deprivation (SIMD) quintiles. We estimated the impact on LE by app…
Deaths from ‘diseases of despair’ in Britain
BACKGROUND: The contribution of increasing numbers of deaths from suicide, alcohol-related and drug-related causes to changes in overall mortality rates has been highlighted in various countries. In Scotland, particular vulnerable cohorts have been shown to be most at risk; however, it is unclear to what extent this applies elsewhere in Britain. The aim here was to compare mortality rates for different birth cohorts between Scotland and England a…
Health inequalities, fundamental causes and power
Reducing health inequalities remains a challenge for policy makers across the world. Beginning from Lewin's famous dictum that 'there is nothing as practical as a good theory', this paper begins from an appreciative discussion of 'fundamental cause theory', emphasizing the elegance of its theoretical encapsulation of the challenge, the relevance of its critical focus for action, and its potential to support the practical mobilisation of knowledge…
Mitigating the wider health effects of covid-19 pandemic response
Countries worldwide have implemented strict controls on movement in response to the covid-19 pandemic. The aim is to cut transmission by reducing close contact (box 1), but the measures have profound consequences. Several sectors are seeing steep reductions in business, and there has been panic buying in shops. Social, economic, and health consequences are inevitable. Box 1 ### Social distancing measuresRETURN TO TEXT The health benefits of socia…
Health inequalities, fundamental causes and power
Reducing health inequalities remains a challenge for policy makers across the world. Beginning from Lewin's famous dictum that 'there is nothing as practical as a good theory', this paper begins from an appreciative discussion of 'fundamental cause theory', emphasizing the elegance of its theoretical encapsulation of the challenge, the relevance of its critical focus for action, and its potential to support the practical mobilisation of knowledge…
Working-class discourses of politics, policy and health
It is known that population health is socially and politically determined. A gap, however, between the evidence and policy (where behavioural approaches dominate) is evident. This study used semi-structured interviews in two deindustrialised areas in Scotland to explore understandings of the causes of (ill)health in local communities. Using Raphael’s Discourses of Social Health Determinants (2011), we found that participants typically had highly …
Is austerity a cause of slower improvements in mortality in high-income countries? A panel analysis
Stalled mortality trends and austerity are widespread phenomena across high-income countries. Austerity is likely to be a cause of stalled mortality trends. Governments should consider alternative economic policy approaches if these harmful population health impacts are to be avoided
Socioeconomic inequality in recent adverse all-cause mortality trends in Scotland
BACKGROUND: Gains in life expectancies have stalled in Scotland, as in several other countries, since around 2012. The relationship between stalling mortality improvements and socioeconomic inequalities in health is unclear. METHODS: We calculate the difference, as percentage change, in all-cause, all-age, age-standardised mortality rates (ASMR) between 2006 and 2011 (period 1) and between 2012 and 2017 (period 2), for Scotland overall, by sex, a…
Deaths from ‘diseases of despair’ in Britain
BACKGROUND: The contribution of increasing numbers of deaths from suicide, alcohol-related and drug-related causes to changes in overall mortality rates has been highlighted in various countries. In Scotland, particular vulnerable cohorts have been shown to be most at risk; however, it is unclear to what extent this applies elsewhere in Britain. The aim here was to compare mortality rates for different birth cohorts between Scotland and England a…
Dying younger in Scotland
Given previous evidence that not all Scotland's higher mortality compared to England & Wales (E&W) can be explained by deprivation, the aim was to enhance understanding of this excess by analysing changes in deprivation and mortality in Scotland and E&W between 1981 and 2011. Mortality was compared by means of direct standardisation and log-linear Poisson regression models, adjusting for age, sex and deprivation. Different measures of deprivation…
Trends in healthy life expectancy in the age of austerity
BACKGROUND: Worrying changes in life expectancy trends have been observed recently in the UK, largely attributed to austerity policies introduced over the last decade. To incorporate changes to quality, rather than just length of, life, our aim was to describe trends in healthy life expectancy (HLE) for the relevant period. METHODS: In the absence of available long-term trends, we calculated new estimates of HLE for Scotland for the period 1995-2…
Spatial and temporal inequalities in mortality in the USA, 1968–2016
Previous UK and European research has highlighted important variations in mortality between populations after adjustment for key determinants such as poverty and deprivation. The aim here was to establish whether similar populations could be identified in the US, and to examine changes over time. We employed Poisson regression models to compare county-level mortality with national rates between 1968 and 2016, adjusting for poverty, education, rac…
How bad are life expectancy trends across the UK, and what would it take to get back to previous trends
Background Within the UK, there has been debate on whether life expectancy is increasing or decreasing in particular single or 3-year periods, but there has been less thinking whether overall trends have changed. This paper considers the extent to which the trends in life expectancy for the UK and its nations have changed before and after 2011. Methods We used the Office for National Statistics period life expectancy data for the UK and its natio…
Visualising and quantifying ‘excess deaths’ in Scotland compared with the rest of the UK and the rest of Western Europe
BACKGROUND: Scotland has higher mortality rates than the rest of Western Europe (rWE), with more cardiovascular disease and cancer among older adults; and alcohol-related and drug-related deaths, suicide and violence among younger adults. METHODS: We obtained sex, age-specific and year-specific all-cause mortality rates for Scotland and other populations, and explored differences in mortality both visually and numerically. RESULTS: Scotland's age…
Social theory and health inequalities
Socioeconomic and geographic inequalities in adolescent smoking
Bearing the burden of austerity
BACKGROUND: Mortality rates across the UK stopped improving in the early 2010s, largely attributable to UK Government's 'austerity' policies. Such policies are thought to disproportionately affect women in terms of greater financial impact and loss of services. The aim here was to investigate whether the mortality impact of austerity-in terms of when rates changed and the scale of excess deaths-has also been worse for women. METHODS: All-cause mo…
Knowing the goal
OBJECTIVE: Inequality is deeply embedded in our economic structures-it is necessary to address these economic inequalities if we are to reduce health inequalities. An inclusive economic approach was conceptualised as a way to reduce these economic inequalities, although the attributes of this approach are unclear. Public health practitioners are increasingly asked to provide a health perspective on the economic recovery plans in the light of the …
Scaling Covid-19 against inequalities
Background The mortality impact of COVID-19 has thus far been described in terms of crude death counts. We aimed to calibrate the scale of the modelled mortality impact of COVID-19 using age-standardised mortality rates and life expectancy contribution against other, socially determined, causes of death in order to inform governments and the public. Methods We compared mortality attributable to suicide, drug poisoning and socioeconomic inequality…
The contribution of changes to tax and social security to stalled life expectancy trends in Scotland
Background Life expectancy (LE) improvements have stalled, and UK tax and welfare ‘reforms’ have been proposed as a cause. We estimated the effects of tax and welfare reforms from 2010/2011 to 2021/2022 on LE and inequalities in LE in Scotland. Methods We applied a published estimate of the cumulative income impact of the reforms to the households within Scottish Index of Multiple Deprivation (SIMD) quintiles. We estimated the impact on LE by app…
Recent cohort effects in suicide in Scotland
BACKGROUND: Mortality rates are higher in Scotland relative to England and Wales, even after accounting for deprivation. This 'excess' mortality is partly due to higher mortality from alcohol-related and drug-related deaths, violence and suicide (particularly in young adults). This study investigated whether cohort effects from exposure to neoliberal politics from the 1980s might explain the recent trends in suicide in Scotland. METHODS: We analy…
How will the 2014 Commonwealth Games impact on Glasgow’s health, and how will we know
This article identifies pathways through which impacts from the 2014 Commonwealth Games might arise. It also assesses the likelihood of positive impacts and considers how best to evaluate the games. The pathways identified are: economic growth; increased sports participation; increased pride and sense of identity; volunteering; improved environment; and legacy programmes. There is little or no evidence from previous major multi-sports events to s…
Illustrating health inequalities in Glasgow
The stark health inequalities in Glasgow are demonstrated by the drop in life expectancy of 2.0 years for men and 1.2 years for women
Glossary
As we emerge from the COVID-19 pandemic, there is an increasing focus on how the economy is rebuilt and the impact this will have on population health. Many of the economic policy proposals being discussed have their own vocabulary, which is not always understood in the same way within or between disciplines. This glossary seeks to provide a common language and concise summary of the key economic terminology relevant for policymakers and public h…
Explaining the excess mortality in Scotland compared with England
BACKGROUND: Mortality in Scotland is higher than in the rest of west and central Europe and is improving more slowly. Relative to England and Wales, the excess is only partially explained by area deprivation. We tested the extent to which sociodemographic, behavioural, anthropometric and biological factors explain the higher mortality in Scotland compared with England. METHODS: Pooled data from 18 nationally representative cohort studies comprisi…
Comparing time and risk preferences across three post-industrial UK cities
OP73 Exploring Impacts of Survey Non-Response using Record-Linkage of Scottish Health Survey Data (2003 to 2008)
Background Inference on population health is commonly derived from health survey data, based on the assumption that they are representative of the target communities. Departure from representativeness may weaken external validity leading to biased estimates, with important implications for public health evidence, particularly in relation to prevalence and quantity estimates such as population alcohol consumption. A key aspect determining the exte…
Improving the Health of Looked after Children in Scotland
The first of two studies reported here by Donna Hunter, Gerry McCartney, Susan Fleming and Fiona Guy investigated whether a specialist nursing service could improve the health care of 162 children in residential care in Renfrewshire, West Dunbartonshire and Argyll & Bute. It found that after the introduction of the service, the proportion of children with completed carer-held health records (BAAF health record booklets) increased from three per c…
Improving the Health of Looked after Children in Scotland
The first of two studies reported here by Donna Hunter, Gerry McCartney, Susan Fleming and Fiona Guy investigated whether a specialist nursing service could improve the health care of 162 children in residential care in Renfrewshire, West Dunbartonshire and Argyll & Bute. It found that after the introduction of the service, the proportion of children with completed carer-held health records (BAAF health record booklets) increased from three per c…
Challenges in evaluating Welfare to Work policy interventions
The evaluation of social interventions is hampered by more than their suitability to randomisation. Data sharing, participant identification and recruitment problems are common to randomised and non-randomised evaluation designs. These issues require further attention if we are to learn from current social policy
P55 The impact of neo-liberal “political attack” on health
Objective There is a prevalent, but as yet untested, view in Scottish society that the “Scottish Effect” (the excess mortality in Scotland after taking account of deprivation) is linked to the neo-liberal “political attack” against the organised working class implemented by the post-1979 UK Conservative governments. The objective is to develop and begin to test such a “political attack hypothesis”. Design Development of a “political attack hypoth…
Contribution of smoking-related and alcohol-related deaths to the gender gap in mortality
Smoking continues to be the most important cause of gender differences in mortality across Europe, but its importance as an explanation for this difference is often overshadowed by presumptions about other explanations. Changes in smoking patterns by gender suggest that the gender gap in mortality will diminish in the coming decades
O6-3.1 Mapping injustice, visualising equity
Introduction Epidemiological theory matters for seeing, analysing, depicting and tackling population distributions of health and health inequities. The contrasts between the dominant (biomedical and lifestyle) and alternative (socio-political, psychosocial and ecosocial) epidemiological theories are present in the imagery used to illustrate population health distributions. This symposium will provoke deeper thinking of how health distributions ar…
Illustrating health inequalities in Glasgow
The stark health inequalities in Glasgow are demonstrated by the drop in life expectancy of 2.0 years for men and 1.2 years for women
OP73 Exploring Impacts of Survey Non-Response using Record-Linkage of Scottish Health Survey Data (2003 to 2008)
Background Inference on population health is commonly derived from health survey data, based on the assumption that they are representative of the target communities. Departure from representativeness may weaken external validity leading to biased estimates, with important implications for public health evidence, particularly in relation to prevalence and quantity estimates such as population alcohol consumption. A key aspect determining the exte…
What (or who) causes health inequalities
How will the 2014 Commonwealth Games impact on Glasgow’s health, and how will we know
This article identifies pathways through which impacts from the 2014 Commonwealth Games might arise. It also assesses the likelihood of positive impacts and considers how best to evaluate the games. The pathways identified are: economic growth; increased sports participation; increased pride and sense of identity; volunteering; improved environment; and legacy programmes. There is little or no evidence from previous major multi-sports events to s…
OP30 Exploring Reasons for Different Health Outcomes between Identically Deprived Post-Industrial UK Cities
Background Research has shown that Glasgow has an almost identical deprivation profile to Liverpool and Manchester. However, premature mortality is 30% higher, with mortality at all ages almost 15% higher. Many hypotheses have been proposed to explain this phenomenon: for many, however, no data have been available by which their plausibility could be properly assessed. Methods A representative population survey of Glasgow, Liverpool and Mancheste…
Socioeconomic and geographic inequalities in adolescent smoking
Mortality differences and inequalities within and between ‘protected characteristics’ groups, in a Scottish Cohort 1991–2009
Mortality in Scotland is higher in the majority population, disabled people, males, those reporting being raised as Roman Catholics or with 'no religion' and lower in Asians, females and other religious groups. Relative inequalities in mortality were lower in disabled than nondisabled people, the majority population, females, and greatest in young adults. From the perspective of intersectionality theory, our results clearly demonstrate the import…
Regional alcohol consumption and alcohol-related mortality in Great Britain
This study provides support for the ecological relationship between alcohol-related mortality and alcohol consumption. The synthesis of knowledge from a combination of sales, survey and mortality data, as well as primary research studies, is key to ensuring that regional alcohol consumption, and its relationship with alcohol-related harms, is better understood
Explaining the excess mortality in Scotland compared with England
BACKGROUND: Mortality in Scotland is higher than in the rest of west and central Europe and is improving more slowly. Relative to England and Wales, the excess is only partially explained by area deprivation. We tested the extent to which sociodemographic, behavioural, anthropometric and biological factors explain the higher mortality in Scotland compared with England. METHODS: Pooled data from 18 nationally representative cohort studies comprisi…
Comparing the impact of personal and parental risk factors, and parental lifespan on all-cause mortality and cardiovascular disease
BACKGROUND: We aimed to identify which personal and parental factors best explained all-cause mortality and cardiovascular disease (CVD). METHODS: In 1996, data were collected on 2338 adult offspring of the participants in the 1972-1976 Renfrew and Paisley prospective cohort study. Recorded risk factors were assigned to 5 groups: mid-life biological and behavioural (BB), mid-life socioeconomic, parental BB, early-life socioeconomic and parental l…
Social theory and health inequalities
Comparing time and risk preferences across three post-industrial UK cities
Is there a link between childhood adversity, attachment style and Scotland’s excess mortality? Evidence, challenges and potential research
Attachment processes are a fundamental part of human development, and have a profound influence on adult personality and behaviour, especially in response to stressors. Many studies have also shown that childhood adversity is correlated with adult morbidity and mortality. The interplay between childhood adversity and attachment is complex and not fully elucidated, but will include socio-economic, intergenerational and psychological factors. Impor…
Dying younger in Scotland
Given previous evidence that not all Scotland's higher mortality compared to England & Wales (E&W) can be explained by deprivation, the aim was to enhance understanding of this excess by analysing changes in deprivation and mortality in Scotland and E&W between 1981 and 2011. Mortality was compared by means of direct standardisation and log-linear Poisson regression models, adjusting for age, sex and deprivation. Different measures of deprivation…
Scottish Keep Well health check programme
BACKGROUND: Effective interventions are available to reduce cardiovascular risk. Recently, health check programmes have been implemented to target those at high risk of cardiovascular disease (CVD), but there is much debate whether these are likely to be effective at population level. This paper evaluates the impact of wave 1 of Keep Well, a Scottish health check programme, on cardiovascular outcomes. METHODS: Interrupted time series analyses wer…
Obesity in Scotland
The BMI distribution for adults increased between 1995 and 2008 with a large proportion of the population gaining a small amount of weight before stabilising across the distribution. Inequalities in obesity persist for adults (with different underlying patterns evident for men and women), and may be widening for children. Actions to reduce the obesogenic environment, including structural changes not dependent on individual agency, are urgently ne…
Right Here Right Now (RHRN) pilot study
RHRN produced a process for collecting near-real-time data for policy-relevant topics, although obtaining and maintaining representative samples was problematic. Adaptations were identified to inform a more sustainable model of near-real-time data collection and dissemination in the future
Recent cohort effects in suicide in Scotland
BACKGROUND: Mortality rates are higher in Scotland relative to England and Wales, even after accounting for deprivation. This 'excess' mortality is partly due to higher mortality from alcohol-related and drug-related deaths, violence and suicide (particularly in young adults). This study investigated whether cohort effects from exposure to neoliberal politics from the 1980s might explain the recent trends in suicide in Scotland. METHODS: We analy…
Do differences in religious affiliation explain high levels of excess mortality in the UK
BACKGROUND: High levels of mortality not explained by differences in socioeconomic status (SES) have been observed for Scotland and its largest city, Glasgow, compared with elsewhere in the UK. Previous cross-sectional research highlighted potentially relevant differences in social capital, including religious social capital (the benefits of social participation in organised religion). The aim of this study was to use longitudinal data to assess …
Visualising and quantifying ‘excess deaths’ in Scotland compared with the rest of the UK and the rest of Western Europe
BACKGROUND: Scotland has higher mortality rates than the rest of Western Europe (rWE), with more cardiovascular disease and cancer among older adults; and alcohol-related and drug-related deaths, suicide and violence among younger adults. METHODS: We obtained sex, age-specific and year-specific all-cause mortality rates for Scotland and other populations, and explored differences in mortality both visually and numerically. RESULTS: Scotland's age…
Medicine (41 works) · Health disparities and outcomes (39 works) · Demography (31 works) · Population (31 works) · Employment and Welfare Studies (27 works) · Sociology (26 works) · Environmental health (25 works) · Political science (21 works) · Economics (20 works) · Psychology (18 works)