Scotland Health Inequalities

There is little doubt that Scotland’s poor health record has featured strongly in the news and in various health reports in recent years. Indeed, since the creation of the Scottish Parliament in 1999, the Scottish Executive have made tackling health inequalities as a top priority and it is focused on narrowing the health gap between disadvantaged groups, communities and on improving health overall.
One health issue which was identified as a problem has been smoking. It is estimated that on average there are over 13,000 tobacco related deaths in Scotland each year. One such policy to tackle this was, from March 2006, a smoking ban in all public places in Scotland. Although, this policy is only a year or so old, smoking has fallen substantially, according to BMA, which has reported a fall of 17% in emergency heart attack admissions to Scottish hospitals; in subsequent affect to this policy. On the other hand, more is being done in this area; in an attempt to help smokers through the process of quitting, an NHS cessation line was established. This in place has been put to immediate action with around 45,000 smokers called in one year. However, little evidence of success is shown as only 8,100 (18%) of these smokers succeeded in quitting while the other 36,900 (82%) continued. It has become clear that 60% of all smokers start by age 13. On October 2007, the buying age for tobacco was raised from 16 to 18 in Scotland to prevent smoking at a young age. With most smokers having started by the age of 13, education is need, not new laws? With no overall significant affect, smoking remains the number one health problem in Scotland.

In 2003 the percentage of adults meeting the recommendations for physical activity in the UK declined with age for both sexes. A factor such as a decrease in the use of cars and an increase in walking and cycling is one way in which to improve people’s health. To encourage people to take this step, health campaigns on TV in the form of...