Health | Rebecca McNish UWS ITE ePDP

From completing the Holmes-Rahe Stress Inventory my score was 115, therefore I fall into the category of ‘150 or less’ which means a relatively low amount of my life should change and ill have a lower susceptibility to stress or an induced health breakdown. My score of 115 actually came as a surprise to me, I thought I was going to be in the second or the third category due to how much things have changed within the past few years especially since last year. So therefore, I was happy about the category I ended up in as I did expect worse.

I would say one of the signs of stress in my life could be university doing assignments and exams for the first time as I just feel sometimes I don’t know what is expected of me as it’s one of the first times I have ever had to produce work for university and know that it’s much more independent and a higher quality of work is expected. In the past year, I have also experienced problems with being overly anxious and nervous when doing several things which should be fairly easy for me to do but do not feel easy. These include things such as presenting as my nerves just get the better of me, I also have a very bad habit of stressing about stress before I even have something to stress about as I overthink the situation many times in my head to the point I couldn’t be anymore stressed if I tried. I also have a sleeping disorder called narcolepsy and due to lack of sleep and my lack of concentration it can sometimes get very frustrating when coming to studying and having a fairly high lack of understanding which can sometimes just add to the stress that was already there about exams.

I can combat the stress in my life by visiting my nurse at the hospital who is specialised on narcolepsy where I can speak through things with her and also meet up with other men/women across Scotland who also have the same condition. This makes me feel more at ease as I know they understand and can contribute to the discussion effectively due to this. This allows for me to help to support these people and I know that it’s non judgemental due to them feeling the same way. I have a good relationship with my family and friends and can talk about things that may be bothering me with them and I know I can lean on them whenever I need too. Lastly I feel that including physical fitness into my routine could be really helpful for combating stress and getting time away from the triggers of stress.

The Glasgow Effect covers deprived UK cities which experience different health outcomes such as Glasgow, Manchester and Liverpool. Within deprived neighbourhoods in Glasgow, premature deaths were more than 30% higher with all deaths about 15% higher than Liverpool and Manchester. This high amount of mortality was seen across the whole population, excluding the very young people but was seen in both men and women. Regarding premature mortality, mostly for men under 65 pointed at the use and consumption of alcohol and drugs. However, deprivation is not enough to explain the large number of death experienced in Glasgow compared to Manchester and Liverpool. The outcome of this shows that Glasgow, although fairly similar to Manchester and Liverpool to have worse health outcomes due to Glasgow’s socio-economic qualities.

Glasgow, along with Manchester and Liverpool all experience big amounts of poor health and deprivation. Standardised mortality ratios were figured out for Glasgow and also Liverpool and Manchester, not intentionally for age, sex and income deprivation decline in these three main cities. However, all of them were studied separately and there was only a small difference in the results between the three cities. The main causes of mortality that were identified were lung cancer, diseases of the circulatory system, injury brought on by the individual(s), suicide, deaths related to alcohol consumption and lastly drug related deaths.

When comparing Manchester, Liverpool and Glasgow – results show that deprivation levels in the three cities was almost the exact same. Within Glasgow, high amounts of death was the greatest in individuals who worked from 15 years old to 44 years old and 45 to 64 years old. However, there were much higher rates of mortality within the 45 years old to 64 years old. Cancers and Diseases of the circulatory system resulted in the higher majority of deaths. Deaths within women In Glasgow which were from suicide were more than two times more than the females in Manchester and Liverpool.

At the very beginning of the 20th Century there was only a small difference between the three cities rates. However, a broadening gap seen rates in Glasgow improving more slowly than rates in Manchester and Liverpool. This can be seen in the years for which data are available nearer the end of the 20th Century. Therefore, this could point out that the higher death rates, The Glasgow Effect is a fairly recent event.

Health behaviours such as smoking, binge drinking and healthy eating show that there are only small differences in commonness levels of these behaviours. Levels of obesity are also very similar throughout the three main cities. However, regarding healthy eating, binge drinking, and obesity the differentiation area is within Greater Glasgow and not Glasgow city.

Several hypotheses have been made about ‘The Glasgow Effect’. One hypothesis is that it could be driven by components of ‘societal breakdown’ among parts of Glasgow’s population. Alcohol, drugs and suicide mortality show huge differences in the amounts of self-harming behaviours in Glasgow compared to Liverpool and Manchester that may reflect elemental societal differences among parts of the population. Some other hypotheses which have been made are cultural differences, effects of migration, genetic factors and many more.

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