Changing mortality rates in Scotland and the UK: an updated summary - Glasgow Centre for Population Health

Published: 27 February 2023

Research insight

New publication from Glasgow Centre for Population Health - 'Changing mortality rates in Scotland & the UK: an updated summary' shows further evidence of hugely alarming changes to population health - including mortality rates, healthy life expectancy & mental health.

Recently Glasgow Centre for Population Health (GCPH) published an updated summary of changing mortality rates in Scotland and the UK. This builds on the extensive evidence that the GCPH, and others, have previously published on the profound and deeply concerning changes to these trends since around 2012: a stalling in mortality improvements overall, increasing death rates among the most deprived communities, and a widening in inequalities.   

In May the GCPH published their 'Resetting the course for population health' report, which attributed these changes principally to the implementation of UK Government austerity policies through a critical assessment of all the evidence at that time.

Since then, yet more research has been published in the academic literature on the detrimental changes to different aspects of population health. They have also updated the mortality analyses with the most recent figures. This paper summarises this updated evidence by:

  1. Briefly summarising the findings of the new academic literature.
  2. Presenting updates of the previously-published mortality analyses to cover (i) the period prior to the COVID-19 pandemic (i.e. up to the end of 2019); and (ii) the two years of the pandemic (i.e. up to the end of 2021).

In doing this, the paper provides further evidence of the detrimental changes to different aspects of population health:

  • further widening of all-cause and cause-specific mortality inequalities
  • a dramatic reversal of previously declining mortality rates among socioeconomically deprived populations
  • an unprecedented decline in healthy life expectancy
  • worsening trends in poor mental health
  • the (much smaller) contribution of obesity to stalled national mortality trends

To view this report in full and to read comments on the new analysis by Dr David Walsh, Public Health Programme Manager at GCPH and lead author of the updated summary, follow the link below to the Glasgow Centre for Population Health website. 

Glasgow Centre for Population Health

First published: 27 February 2023

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