Buddies live longer than Johnstone and Linwood families

Oct 23 2008 by Andrew Newport, Paisley Daily Express

PEOPLE living in Johnstone and Linwood are likely to die FOUR YEARS before their neighbours in Paisley, a new report has revealed.

University boffins have released the findings of a study dubbed ‘The Grim Reaper’s Road Map’ which analysed death statistics from between 1981 and 2004 to discover the average life expectancy of residents in towns across the UK.

According to the research, people living in areas such as Blackhall in Paisley have a life expectancy of 74.7 years, while those who stay in Gallowhill live, on average, until the age of 72.8 years.

But folk staying in Linwood or Johnstone will be lucky to live long enough to blow out the candles on their 69th birthday cake.

Authors of the report, which has been compiled by teams at the Universities of Bristol and Sheffield, said the variations in life expectancy can be explained by factors such as poverty, social mobility and lifestyle.

Danny Dorling, Professor of Geography at Sheffield University, told the Paisley Daily Express: “Regional variations in life expectancy are not just about poverty.

“Poverty is part of it but it’s also about people moving around the country to improve their health and wealth.”

Researchers divided the UK into 1,282 neighbourhoods – each about the size of half of a parliamentary constituency.

Within these areas, they calculated a person’s chances of dying from a particular cause in a particular place, compared to the national average for that cause of death.

Researchers found the overall average age of death in the UK was 74.4 years.

Women live the longest – with an average life expectancy of 77.4 years – while the average man dies aged 71.2 years.

The report has revealed that Paisley people are twice as likely to die as a result of lung cancer than people living in other parts of the country.

However, skin cancer mortality rates in Renfrewshire are significantly lower than the national average.

Elsewhere in Britain, there were huge variations in life expectancy rates.

The average age of death in Glasgow’s Easterhouse estate is just 66 – some seven years less than the average for Paisley.

Buddies who want to increase their chances of living longer should consider moving south to the town of Eastbourne in Sussex, where the life expectancy rate is 80 – the highest in the UK.