page_title: Glasgow effect
section_title: Excess mortality and morbidity
hierarchical_section_title: Glasgow effect / Excess mortality and morbidity
caption_attribution_description: English: Glasgow's location in Scotland
context_page_description: The Glasgow effect refers to the low life expectancy and poor health of residents of Glasgow, Scotland, compared to the rest of the United Kingdom and Europe. Defined as "[e]xcess mortality in the West of Scotland after controlling for deprivation", the Glasgow effect is part of the "Scottish effect"; the country as a whole has health disparities compared to the rest of Europe, and indeed it has been called "the sick man of Europe". The disparities are greatest in Glasgow.
  Although lower income levels are generally associated with poor health and shorter lifespan, epidemiologists have argued that poverty alone does not appear to account for the disparity found in Glasgow. Equally deprived areas of the UK such as Liverpool and Manchester have higher life expectancies, and the wealthiest ten percent of the Glasgow population have a lower life expectancy than the same group in other cities. One in four men in Glasgow will die before his sixty-fifth birthday.
context_section_description: The city's mortality gap was not apparent until 1950 and seems to have widened since the 1970s. The Economist wrote in 2012: "It is as if a malign vapour rises from the Clyde at night and settles in the lungs of sleeping Glaswegians."
  The mortality rates are the highest in the UK and among the highest in Europe. As of 2016, life expectancy in Scotland was lower for both females and males than anywhere else in western Europe, and was not improving as quickly as in other western European countries. With a population of 1.2 million in greater Glasgow, life expectancy at birth is 71.6 years for men, nearly seven years below the national average of 78.2 years, and 78 years for women, over four years below the national average of 82.3.
  According to the World Health Organization in 2008, the male life expectancy at birth in the Calton area of Glasgow at that time was 54 years. A local doctor attributed this to alcohol and drug abuse, and a violent gang culture. According to Bruce Whyte of the Glasgow Centre for Population Health, writing in 2015, the estimate was based on deaths in 1998–2002 in an area comprising 2,500 people, and the figures may have been affected by the presence of hostels for adults with alcohol, drug and mental-health problems. The 2008–2012 estimate for Calton and nearby Bridgeton together, by then more ethnically diverse and with fewer hostels, was 67.8 years for males and 76.6 years for females.
  Research led by David Walsh of the Glasgow Centre for Population Health in 2010 concluded that the deprivation profiles of Glasgow, Liverpool and Manchester are almost identical, but premature deaths in Glasgow are over 30 percent higher, and all deaths around 15 percent higher, across almost the entire population. The higher mortality is fueled by stroke, respiratory disease, cardiovascular disease and cancer, along with deaths caused by alcohol, drugs, violence and suicide. According to a 2016 study, 43 percent of adults are classified as either disabled or chronically ill. Suicide rates are higher than they were in 1968, and the all-cause mortality rate in the 15–44 age group is 142.4 deaths per 100,000. Drug-related deaths in Scotland more than doubled between 2006 and 2016.
caption: Glasgow within Scotland; also see Greater Glasgow.
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