• Children from deprived areas six times more exposed to tobacco retail
    Children from the most income deprived areas experienced similar exposure to tobacco retailing in one day, as children from the least deprived areas experienced in one week. This was the finding of new collaborative research between the MRC/CSO Social and Public Health Sciences Unit and the University of Edinburgh, which was published in the journal Tobacco Control. The researchers used GPS-trackers to follow a group of almost 700 10-and-11-year-olds from across Scotland. They found that children from the most deprived neighbourhoods encounter a shop selling tobacco 149 times a week, compared to just 23 times a week for the least deprived.
  • White Scots have poorer health than many other ethnic groups
    A new study by the MRC/CSO Social and Public Health Sciences Unit has found that White Scottish people are more likely to rate their health as bad and experience higher socioeconomic inequalities in health than many other ethnic groups. The study used the 2011 Scottish Census to calculate rates for two self-rated health outcomes: poor general health and limiting long-term illness by ethnicity, age and deprivation. White Scottish, Pakistani and those of mixed and other ethnicity are most likely to rate their health poor and report a long-term condition that limits their day-to-day activities, while those of White Polish, Chinese and African background are least likely to report health problems. The health of White Scottish people is also self-rated worse than that of the White British and Irish living in Scotland.

Read all the latest news from the MRC/CSO Social and Public Health Sciences Unit in their Summer Newsletter


First published: 14 March 2018