HOW SICK IS THE WEST OF SCOTLAND - AGE-SPECIFIC COMPARISONS WITH NATIONAL DATASETS ON A RANGE OF HEALTH MEASURES

The Central Clydeside Conurbation (CCC) has relatively high mortality rates. This paper examines whether it also has relatively high rates o f ill health, using data from three cohorts (aged 15, 35 and 55 in 198 7/88) in the West of Scotland. Comparisons on a range of self-reported physical and mental health indicators, anthropometric measures, blood pressure, and respiratory function were made with comparable age grou ps in ten British or Scottish national studies. The older two cohorts in the CCC exhibited relatively high rates of longstanding and limitin g longstanding illness and the youngest cohort had relatively poor psy chosocial health, compared to their age peers elsewhere. Fewer differe nces were found in blood pressure, anthropometric measures or respirat ory function although older CCC residents were slightly shorter than i n Britain as a whole and had slightly poorer respiratory function. Cen tral Clydesiders in the late 1980s were generally in poorer health tha n those of the same sex and similar age elsewhere in the UK, but the e xtent of the disadvantage varied across different dimensions of health , and was not as marked as some stereotypes of the West of Scotland wo uld suggest.