The Glasgow Effect is a term used to describe the apparent relationship between Glasgow and poor health, beyond the levels of poor health which are to be expected due to levels of socioeconomic deprivation. The document discussing an investigation by David Walsh, Neil Bendel, Richard Jones and Phil Hanlon into this effect looks at the relationship between Glasgow’s socio-economic state and mortality rates. However, by investigating this relationship, the need for a different investigation was highlighted and this is currently underway, looking to understand why Glasgow has a higher mortality rate than other cities with similar levels of deprivation. The cities used for comparison to Glasgow were Liverpool and Manchester. Alongside Glasgow, these are the most deprive cities in the UK and have the highest mortality rates.
Firstly, researchers looked to define the three cities in question by the different local authorities within them. They then worked out a way to equally measure the income deprivation of each of the three cities, which were all at similar levels. After splitting each of the cities into smaller areas to make the results more accurate, researchers studied the mortality data for each small area, within 5 year age groups, taking genders and different causes, such as all malignant neoplasts, diseases of the circulatory system, external causes, and suicide and self inflicted injury, into account. They finally looked at historical data and other English cities to give them scope for comparison.
The results showed that with almost a quarter of each of the populations of Glasgow, Liverpool and Manchester being classed as income deprived, the deprivation is similarly distributed. However, mortality rates in Glasgow for people aged under 65 years old were almost 30% higher than those in Liverpool and Manchester, suggesting that there are causes of this high mortality rate beyond deprivation. The ‘Excess’ mortality of Glasgow refers to deaths which, if Glasgow was the exact same as Liverpool and Manchester in terms of age, gender and mortality rates, would not be expected. This ‘excess’ mortality is at around 45% in the age group of 15-44 and around 30% in the age group of 45-64 year olds. Although, it was found that the mortality rate of children aged 0-15 in Glasgow is lower than in Manchester and Liverpool.
In addition, mortality was displayed as being at its highest in Glasgow, compared to Liverpool and Manchester in the most and least deprived deciles of the city. This clearly poses the question of why are death rates so high for people who are wealthy? Displaying the possibility that higher income may be detrimental to health, just as lower income is, possibly due to poor health decisions made because of stress, lack of time to be active, or money which is at their disposal to be spent on unhealthy habits.
Furthermore, a break down of the death rates in Glasgow due to different causes of death was shown. With deaths in Glasgow due to suicide being around 70% higher than those in Manchester and Liverpool. Also, deaths in Glasgow due to lung cancer are around 27% more common than those in Liverpool and Manchester. With external causes being 32% higher in Glasgow and alcohol and drug related deaths being almost 50% higher in Glasgow than in the other two cities mentioned.
Many different factors were considered and clearly, further research is required when thinking about why Scotland’s mortality rate is higher than that of two cities which have almost identical socioeconomic backgrounds to it. The possibility that it could be linked to an ‘anomie’, as discussed by Emile Durkeheim as a lack of control of society over people’s behaviour, is mentioned in this report. As well as this, it is considered that cultural differences, genetic factors, and family life, to name a few, could possibly be impacting Glasgow’s mortality rates. Clearly, many if not all of these factors, as well a the others mentioned, could be impacting Glasgow’s death rates. Poor health choices and generally poor health can be passed on through generations by genetics or simply by influence.
Glasgow was also compared to 4 less deprived English cities, namely: Birmingham, Bristol, Leeds and Sheffield. These results indicate that deprivation is definitely related to higher mortality. When comparing Glasgow with the rest of Scotland, it is made clear that Glasgow City has the highest rates of mortality in Scotland.
