Glasgow Under A MicroscopeProf Bill Buchanan OBEBlockedUnblockFollowFollowingFeb 25I think Glasgow is changing, and where a new population is flooding into the city, and bringing with them healthy and educated ways.
From what I see the city will have problems for the next decade or so, but it will come out of the other side as a healthy and wealthy city.
The key to this transformation is a growth its population, and where young and healthy workers replace a generation of smokers living within poor housing, along with attracted highly educated and skilled workforce.
As heavy industry leaves, so software, data science and cyber security enter.
As someone who drives to Glasgow from Edinburgh, I see so much infrastructure creation, and see a new building almost every time I travel to the city.
The issues …I’ll show this change at the end of this article, but let’s start to look at some basic demographics about the city.
If you go to any city in the world, you will see the same types of splits, between those who have and those who have not … and Glasgow is no different.
First we’ll plot the latest health domain rankings (where 1 is the weakest) from SIMD 2016 and employment, and we find that Possil Park has the weakest grading [here]:If we look at education and education, we see places like Kelvinside and Jordanhill appearing as the strongest areas, while Barlanark and Easterhouse do not do as strongly [here]:Glasgow compared with Edinburgh we see that in Edinburgh the bunching of areas is at the upper right hand corner, which Glasgow bunches at the lower left hand corner:So while Glasgow has many health and educated areas, it still has problems in a number of areas of the city.
When we look at housing and health, we see the another troublesome cluster in the bottom left hand corner [here]:If we compare with Edinburgh, we see the triangle effect, where Glasgow has problems with health, but Edinburgh is fairly healthy, but struggles with its housing:When it comes to a mapping of areas which are income and employment deprived we see a direct correlation (as we would expect) with Possil Park have the most problems and the South side of the City Centre has the least [here]:The cluster appears at the top right-hand corner, but in Edinburgh the trend bunches around the middle, with a tail-off at the end [Glasgow][Edinburgh]:A changing city … more educated and healthyBut while Glasgow has some health related problems, but it needs to grow out of it and bring in a new and health population.
If we look at COPD and smoking, we see a particular problem in Glasgow [here]:But the issue is related to older smokers … a lost generation … and where a younger population is coming through who are much less likely to smoke [here]:So we see that the prevalence of smoking at school and for 16–39 is much less than many other areas of Scotland.
We see here that Glasgow is only city in Scotland which is growing its population, but has problems with deprivation [here]:ConclusionsThe population growth in Scotland is typically around the areas which have the healthiest population, but Glasgow is the only area which bucks that trend, in that it is bring in new workers and creating a new generation.
At the core is smoking … if you don’t smoke … you are much more likely to be health … simple as that!.