Glasgow effect

The Glasgow effect is a contested term^[1] which refers to the lower life expectancy of residents of Glasgow compared to the rest of the United Kingdom and Europe.^[2][3] The phenomenon is defined as an "[e]xcess mortality in the West of Scotland (Glasgow) after controlling for deprivation."^[4] Although lower income levels are generally associated with poor health and a shorter lifespan, epidemiologists have argued that poverty alone does not appear to account for the disparity found in Glasgow.^{[3][5][6][7][8][9]} Equally deprived areas of the UK such as Liverpool and Manchester have higher life expectancies, and the wealthiest ten per cent of the Glasgow population have a lower life expectancy than the same group in other cities.^[10] One in four men in Glasgow will die before his sixty-fifth birthday.^[11]

Several hypotheses have been proposed to account for the ill health, including the practice in the 1960s and 1970s of offering young, skilled workers in Glasgow social housing in new towns, leaving behind a demographically "unbalanced population".^[12][13] Other suggested factors have included a high prevalence of premature and low birthweight births, land contaminated by toxins, a high level of derelict land, more deindustrialisation than in comparable cities, poor social housing, religious sectarianism, lack of social mobility,^[14] vitamin D deficiency, cold winters, higher levels of poverty than the figures suggest, adverse childhood experiences and childhood stress, high levels of stress in general, and social alienation.^[15]