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Scotland's Chief Statistician yesterday published the report Long-Term Monitoring of Health Inequalities: Headline Indicators, October 2011.

This report represents the fourth in a series of annual updates of headline indicators of inequalities and has been published following a recommendation in the report of the Ministerial Task Force, Equally Well.

The report includes both absolute and relative measures, which assess the size of the health inequalities gap between the most deprived and least deprived groups in Scotland and how steep this inequalities gradient is.

Main findings:

• Healthy Life Expectancy (HLE) at birth: Inequalities in HLE have been stable in both absolute and relative terms.
• Premature Mortality from all causes, in adults aged under 75 years: Inequalities are stable in absolute terms but are widening in relative terms.
• Mental Wellbeing in adults aged 16 years and over: The data for Mental Wellbeing measured by Warwick-Edinburgh Mental Wellbeing Scale (WEMWBS) were reported for the first time in 2009. Inequalites are stable in both absolute and relative terms but more data is required to identify a trend.
• Low birthweight: Inequalities are narrowing in both absolute and relative terms.
• Coronary Heart Disease (CHD), first ever hospital admission for heart attack in adults aged under 75 years: Inequalities have decreased in both absolute and relative terms in recent years, with a slight increase in the latest year.
• Coronary Heart Disease (CHD), deaths in adults aged 45-74 years: Inequalities have narrowed in absolute terms but are widening in relative terms (i.e. improvement observed in deprived areas have not been as great as those observed on average in Scotland).
• Cancer incidence rate in adults aged under 75 years: Inequalities are stable in both absolute and relative terms, with some evidence of a decrease in the last few years.
• Cancer deaths in adults aged 45-74 years: Inequalities are increasing both in absolute and relative terms.
• Alcohol first ever hospital admission in adults aged under 75 years: Inequalities have fluctuated in absolute and relative terms, although there are signs of a decrease in the last few years.
• Alcohol deaths in adults aged 45-74 years: Inequalities have fluctuated in absolute and relative terms over time but there has been a slight reduction in the latest year.
• All-cause mortality in people aged 15-44 years: Inequalities have remained stable in absolute terms but are widening in relative terms (i.e. improvement observed in deprived areas have not been as great as those observed on average in Scotland).

Official Statistics are produced by professionally independent statistical staff.

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