Deaths — Variation within
Scotland
Last Updated: August 2009
In 2008, the overall death rate for Scotland, was 10.8 deaths per 1,000 population. An equivalent figure can be calculated for each Council area and for each NHS Board area. However, comparing the "crude" death rates of different areas could present a misleading picture, because of differences between their populations' age-structures and their balances between the sexes. Therefore, the comparisons that appear below use death rates which have been "standardised" for differences in the age/sex-distribution of the population in each area.
Standardised rates which are based on the age/sex-distribution of the population of Scotland as a whole enable comparisons of the death rates in different parts of Scotland with each other, and with the overall death rate for Scotland, which are not affected by differences in their populations' age/sex-distributions. However, it should be noted that the normal year-to-year fluctuations in the numbers of deaths will mean that areas with small populations may sometimes have rates that are unusually high, or unusually low.
Among the Council areas, standardised death rates in 2008 were highest in Eilean Siar (13.2 per 1,000 population), Argyll & Bute and West Dunbartonshire (both 12.6), South Ayrshire (12.4), Inverclyde (12.3) and Dundee (12.2) - all areas with standardised death rates which were markedly higher than the overall figure of 10.8 for Scotland as a whole. Standardised death rates in 2008 were lowest in West Lothian (8.5 per 1,000 population), Edinburgh (9.1), Stirling (9.2), Aberdeenshire (9.3), East Dunbartonshire (9.4) and Shetland (9.6).
Among the NHS Board areas, the standardised death rates were highest in Western Isles (13.2), Ayrshire & Arran (12.0) and Dumfries & Galloway (11.9), and lowest in Lothian (9.2), Shetland (9.6) and Grampian (9.9). Other NHS Board areas had standardised death rates which were between 10.2 and 11.5 per 1,000 population, and therefore were not markedly different from the overall Scottish figure of 10.8 per 1,000 population.