Comparison Between Glasgow and Dorset

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Glasgow Whether it is deaths from cirrhosis, drug abuse, lung cancer, murder or suicide, Glasgow’s mortality rates are easily the highest in Britain, and among the highest in Europe. Life expectancy in Glasgow is the lowest in the UK – more than six years below the national average for Glaswegian men (71.6 years, compared with a UK average of 78.2years), and more than four years below average for Glasgow’s women (78 years, compared with the UK average of 82.3). And because Glasgow is home to more than 10%of Scotland’s total population, with nearly 600,000 people in the city itself, and more than a million in the greater Glasgow area, Glasgow’s problems are very much Scotland’s problems. Poverty alone doesn’t account for Glasgow’s dismally low life expectancy. Glasgow’s most affluent citizens, those in the top 10% of income distribution, die significantly younger than their counterparts in other British cities. At best, according to the epidemiologists’ calculations, deprivation accounts for less than half (around 40%) of Glasgow’s “mortality gap” compared to the rest of the UK. The other causes are unknown. The grim record has prompted calls for a wide-ranging public inquiry into drug abuse in Glasgow. MPs, bereaved parents, health professionals and junkies themselves say radical measure are needed to stamp out the city’s problem – the worst in Europe. Drugs deaths have risen sharply in recent years. In 1992, 43 young Glaswegians died; last year, the figure was 97 out of total of around 140 north of the border. In a city of 650,000 people the rate is worryingly high. Compared to the rest of Britain, it is shocking. Around 350 intravenous drug addict take fatal overdoses in the whole of England and wales each year. If London’s death rate was the same as Glasgow’s, more than 1,000 youngsters would die each year – three every day. [1] Also, the weather has an

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