Morbidity and Irish Catholic descent in Britain relating health disadvantage to socio-economic position

In common with some other ethnic and religious minorities whose forebears m igrated from their country of origin, Irish Catholics in Britain are less w ell off than the host population in terms of socio-economic position and he alth. Results are presented from a Scottish study, where Catholic religion of origin mainly indicates Irish ancestry, and it is estimated that about o ne-third of the population is of significant Irish descent. In this study, excess of physical and mental health problems and disability have previousl y been reported for those of Catholic background, particularly in the eldes t cohort (aged 56 in 1988), and have not been fully explained by health-rel ated behaviour. In this paper, we examine a number of key health measures, namely self-assessed health, number of symptoms in the month prior to inter view, sadness or depression, disability and lung Function, and various indi cators of socio-economic position (head of household social class, main sou rce of income, car ownership, housing tenure and school-leaving age), which all show Catholic disadvantage. Using longitudinal results from the 723 re spondents who completed interviews both at sweeps one (1988) and three (199 5), it is estimated that about half of the morbidity excess amongst middle- aged Catholics in Glasgow can be explained by socio-economic disadvantage. The health and socio-economic position of white minorities and disadvantage d religious minorities like Catholics in Scotland should be monitored by a co-ordinated information strategy. (C) 2001 Elsevier Science Ltd. Ail right s reserved.