Whole Family Support Through General Practice: equality impact assessment

Background

Scotland currently has the widest health inequalities in Western Europe and those living in the most deprived areas are being left even further behind across a wide range of health outcomes, but this is particularly striking in relation to mortality rates and healthy life expectancy. Since the early 2010s the trend for improving population health has stalled. Two recent reports by the Health Foundation concluded there is still a major implementation gap between policy ambitions to address health inequalities and sustainable delivery of related interventions in Scotland.

It is well documented that health tends to be poorer in Glasgow than much of the rest of the country – even after controlling for socioeconomic deprivation – and this has been studied extensively. For instance, 30% of children in Glasgow are living in poverty, and Glasgow has below average life expectancy and above average absolute inequality in life expectancy compared to the rest of Scotland.