We use cookies on our website to track and enhance your user experience. For more information or to update your cookie settings, please refer to our cookie policy.

AcceptDecline
Skip to Content

Child health overview

Children and young people's health is widely acknowledged as being a key driver to positive life course trajectories. While positive health is an important outcome in and of itself it also increases children and young peoples' chances of achieving and maintaining positive health throughout their life. Promoting healthly lifestyles and preventing people from becoming ill is key to reducing existing and future burden of disease on the NHS and ensuring that everyone can live long and healthy lives. Good prevention starts before birth, by maximising health of the mother and baby before, during, and after pregnancy to improve child health outcomes. 

Children and young people in Glasgow are healthier than in the past, and many improvements continue. However, not all children and young people are benefiting from these improvements, and inequalities in health between the most and least deprived areas in Glasgow are evident today. Data consistently shows that poverty and inequality impact a child's whole life course, affecting their education, housing, and social environment and in turn impacting their health outcomes.

Summary statistics 

The following summary provides some of the key health statistics for children and young people in Glasgow.

  • Health behaviours while pregnant has seen improvement in the Glasgow City Region in the last decade. Fewer mothers are smoking during pregnancy, and there are more mothers who have never smoked, compared to the national average. Drug use in pregnancy has shown an overall, albeit small, decline from 1.2% to 0.9% between 2010 and 2022. While there has been a considerable increase in the proportion of maternities where consumption of alcohol was recorded (from 3% to 35%) this could be attributed to a change in how the question is now phrased at the booking appointment. 
  • Over two thirds of babies in Glasgow City Region were breastfed at the time of the Health Visitors first visit, but the proportion of babies exclusively breastfed had halved by the 6-8 week review, and halved again by the 13-15 month review. Combined feeding also showed a downward trend in Glasgow City Region, albeit with slightly higher levels than exclusive breastfeeding. The proportion of babies combined fed had halved from from 50% to 21% between the 6-8 week and 13-15 month review. Between 2002-03 to 2022-23, exclusive breastfeeing increased only in SIMD 1 and SIMD 5. Meanwhile, combined feeding increased across all SIMD quintiles, with the biggest increase in SIMD 1. 
  • Glasgow City Region has succesfully achieved the required 95% coverage rate for the 6-in-1 vaccine among children at age 12 months but falls short of this WHO target for the first dose of MMR and the MMR booster. This trend was mirrored at a national level and in other Scottish cities. 
  • Uptake of the HPV vaccine was highest among older secondary school pupils, and Glasgow City Region achieved a coverage among S4 pupils of 93% for the first dose, and 87% for the second dose. However vaccine uptake was influenced by gender and deprivation: female pupils were more likely to receive the HPV vaccine compared to male pupils, and pupils in SIMD 5 were more likley to receive the HPV vaccine compared to pupils in SIMD 1. 
  • In 2022, the National Dental Inspection Programme showed over two thirds of Primary 1 children in NHS Greater Glasgow and Clyde had no obvious decay experience. This was marginally lower than the national average, but was the health board with the lowest proportion of children with no dental decay. While dental health inequalities among primary children were evident in Glasgow, NHS Grampian and NHS Borders had the largest inequalilty gap in dental health between SIMD 1 (51%) and SIMD 5 (83%). 
  • In relation to physical activity, almost half (48%) of children are using active travel to primary and secondary school, with walking being the most common mode of active travel. Meanwhile, one third of pupils from P5 to S6 reported they engaged in physical activity every day, and sedentary behaviour was higher during the weekend compared to weekdays. 
  • One fifth of pupils from P5 to S6 reported they were getting the recommended amount of sleep each night. 
  • In relation to substance use: the majority of secondary pupils surveyed reported they had never smoked (79%) and never vaped (69%). A higher proportion of pupils had tried vaping (28%) compared to smoking (18%), and pupils who used vapes, would use them more often than those who smoked cigarettes. More than half of pupils surveyed reportedly had never drank more than a sip of alcohol and one third of pupils had never been drunk. Over half of pupils who did drink alcohol, drank it at home, and one third said their parents/caregivers bougtht them alcohol. Less than 1 in 10 pupils had taken illegal drugs, and the most common drug taken was cannabis, cocaine or ecstacy. One fifth of pupils reportedly took drugs at least once a week or more. 
  • In 2021-22, almost 1 in 10 pupils in S4-S6 were sexually active. More than half had used contraception to prevent pregnancy, and one third didnt use anything. Less than half of pupils reported they wanted it to happen when it did, and 13% would rather they had waited. Over half of students surveyed were aged 15+ years the first time they had sex, and 83% found it easy to say 'no' to sexual experiences they didnt want. 
  • In Glasgow City Region, there has been a continous downward trend in the rate of pregnancies among young people since 2009-11. The biggest reduction is among under-16-year olds where the rate has halved from 8 to 4 per 1,000 females. Similar patterning is seen across other Scottish cities and reflects national rates. Pregnancies among young people has reduced across all SIMD quintiles in NHS Greater Glasgow and Clyde between 2011 and 2020, but there continues to be higher rates of pregnancies among SIMD 1 compared to SIMD 5. 
  • Across Scotland the outcome of pregnancies among young people has changed in the last three decades. In 2020, pregnancies among young people in NHS Greater Glasgow and Clyde were more likely to result in a termination  (rather than a delivery) compared to 2011. However, the actual number of terminations of pregnancy among young people in 2020 is lower because there are fewer pregnancies within this cohort. There are differences in pregnancy outcomes associated with deprivation: young people in SIMD 1 are more likely to deliver their pregnancy and young people from SIMD 5 are more likely to terminate their pregnancy. 
  • In Glasgow City Region, one quarter of primary and secondary school pupils reported their mental health as 'excellent' and less than half reported it as 'good'. A small proportion of pupils (3%) reported their mental health as 'poor'. At the same time, mental wellbeing measures highlighted probable depression in one third of pupils. 
  • Data on probable suicides among young people is not available at a health board level. National statistics showed in 2022, one quarter of all deaths among 5-24 year olds was classed as probable suicide. In comparison, 1% of all deaths among people aged 25+ years was classed as probable suicide. There was a higher proportion of deaths attributed to suicide among older age groups (31% among 20-24 year olds Vs 11% among 10-14 year olds). Young people were significantly less likely to have had contact with a healthcare service in the period before their death compared to 25+ years age group. 
  • The Scottish Government target is that 90% of people should receive mental health treatment within 18 weeks of referral to psychological therapies. In the first quarter of 2023, 92% of children and young people were seen within this 18 week target period. This shows an improvement from 62% in the same quarter in the previous year, and is higher than the national average (74%). However, waiting times for mental health services in NHS Greater Glasgow and Clyde was lower than the national average for the same period. 

The health indicators on these web pages don’t show every aspect of child health – they have been chosen partly because they are readily available, and partly because they show time trends and inequalities, potential for intervention, and lifelong importance.

In this section you will find information on the perinatal environment, immunisations, dental health, physical activity, sleep, substance use, sexual health, and mental health. You will see how figures for Glasgow have changed over time, and how they compare with other Scottish cities and neighbouring Local Authorities. 

In the Targets and strategies section, important aims and policies set by Glasgow City Council, NHS Greater Glasgow and Clyde and the Scottish Government in relation to child health are summarised, with links to policy documents. Sources of more extensive information (such as evidence of the impact of poverty on child health, and sites featuring further child health data) are highlighted in a resources section.  Notes on the data used in this section are summarised. Trends and patterns in the health of Glasgow’s overall population (i.e. adults included) are described within the main set of Glasgow indicators.

The data on the Understanding Glasgow website comes from a variety of administrative sources and surveys, and the frequency of updates to these sources varies. The graphs and text on each page should indicate the period to which an indicator refers. In some cases, where more recently published data is not available, we still use older published sources, such as the 2011 Census.