Ford, G., Hunt, K., Ecob, R., Macintyre, S. & West, P. Patterns of class inequality in health through the lifespan: class gradients at 15, 35 and 55 years in the West of Scotland. Social Science and Medicine. 1993.

A number of nested models are fitted to data on the relation to a number of measures of health and functioning to Registrar General's social class from three cohorts (at baseline) of the West of Scotland Twenty-07 study. Interest focussed on (1) whether these measures were related to social class (2) whether a linear relationship holds (3) whether the strength of the relationship varies by sex or age. The pattern of results varies according to the measure with for some measures (height) common relationship being found at each age and for others (notably mental health and presence of chronic illness) social class gradients being found in later life but not in adolescence. Others showed differences by sex but not by age (measures of body shape) and further measures showed no clear patterns (blood pressure, consultations with general practitioners). Analyses suggest generally a considerable degree of consistency in the gradients in early to late mid-life which are apparent despite the marked increase in the burden of poorer health between these life stages.

West, P., Ford, G., Hunt, K., Macintyre, S. & Ecob, R. How sick is the West of Scotland: findings from the Twenty-07 Study. Scot. Med. J. 39. 101-109.

The Central Clydeside Conurbation (CCC) has relatively high mortality rates. This paper examines whether it also has relatively high rates of ill health, using data from three cohorts (aged 15,35,55 in 1987/88) in the West of Scotland. Comparisons on a range of self-reported physical and mental health indicators, anthropometric measures, blood pressure, and respiratory function were made with comparable age groups in ten British or Scottish national studies. The older two cohorts in the CCC exhibited relatively high rates of longstanding and limiting longstanding illness and the youngest cohort relatively poor psychological health, compared to their age peers elsewhere. Fewer differences were found in blood pressure, anthropometric measures or respiratory function although the older CCC residents were slightly shorter than in Britain as a whole and had slightly poorer respiratory function. Central Clydesiders in the late 1980s were generally in poorer health than those of the same sex and similar age elsewhere in the UK, but the extent of the disadvantage varied across different dimensions of health, and was not as marked as some stereotypes of the West of Scotland would suggest.