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Publication - Statistics

Long-term monitoring of health inequalities: March 2022 report

Published
1 March 2022
Directorate
Population Health Directorate
Topic
Health and social care
ISBN
9781804351277

Annual update of the long-term monitoring of health inequalities headline indicators.

View supporting documents Supporting documents

Healthy Birthweight

Trends in healthy birthweight babies

In each year of the time series, either 89% or 90% of babies have been of healthy birthweight.

Table 12.1: Trends in healthy birthweight, 1996-2020
Year Number appropriate for gestational age1 Target population size1 % of live singleton births
1996 49,989 55,759 89.7
1997 51,113 56,895 89.8
1998 49,303 55,075 89.5
1999 47,048 52,655 89.4
2000 45,292 50,978 88.8
2001 44,355 49,666 89.3
2002 43,571 48,853 89.2
2003 44,539 49,956 89.2
2004 45,842 51,694 88.7
2005 45,592 51,303 88.9
2006 46,678 52,330 89.2
2007 49,059 55,080 89.1
2008 50,658 56,733 89.3
2009 49,880 55,907 89.2
2010 50,236 56,027 89.7
2011 49,997 55,958 89.3
2012 49,454 55,249 89.5
2013 47,650 53,032 89.9
2014 48,673 54,044 90.1
2015 47,285 52,528 90.0
2016 46,694 51,870 90.0
2017 45,228 50,252 90.0
2018 44,308 49,011 90.4
2019 42,568 47,169 90.2
20202 40,675 45,285 89.8

1. This table includes records that could not be assigned an income employment decile and are therefore not included in the rest of the analysis

2. 2020 data are provisional and may be updated in future reports.

Inequalities in healthy birthweight babies 2020

In 2020, there was a marginal difference between the least and the most deprived areas in terms of the proportion of healthy birthweight babies (89.8% in the most deprived areas and 89.4% in the least deprived areas).

Figure 12.1 Babies appropriate for gestational age in Scotland by Income-Employment index 2020 (as percentage of live singleton births)

Trends in relative inequalities

Relative inequalities have been consistently low over the times series. The RII for 2020 is at 0.00, suggesting that there is no relative inequality for this indicator.

Figure 12.2 Relative index of inequality (RII): Babies appropriate for gestational age in Scotland 1996-2020

Trends in absolute inequalities

The absolute gap between the percentage of healthy birthweight babies in the most and least deprived deciles has been consistently low across the full time series (0.4 percentage points in 2020).

Figure 12.3 Absolute Gap: Babies appropriate for gestational age in Scotland 1996-2020 (as percentage of live singleton births)

Contact

Email: morag.shepherd@gov.scot

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