Health Issues Around Aberdeen

[Aitch]

Good day there peoples! Would anyone be kind enough to give a few ideas of where I could poke my nose to find a bit out about the health issues prevalent in Aberdeen? And if any current medics would put their insight into it also...muchos thanks in advance!

[elz]

i would just look on the nhs grampian website and google aberdeen or scotland health topics. obviously theres the north-south divide across the uk so u could tlk about prevalence of asthma and certain conditions being more common in the north (if i remember correctly?). although i didnt get asked anything like that, they dont tend to ask tricky questions. it might be more worth ur while to look on aberdeen uni website at breakthroughs in medical research that have happened in aberdeen. search on the uni website, and itl take u to media. something about a doc in aberdeen being involved in james bond film amongst other things.

[Aitch]

Muchos gracias elz!

[Keeno]

It does amuse me when they teach us about health issues in grampian etc. Since at least half of our course is Irish or English and I don't know anyone who intends to stay in Aberdeen other than the people who are from here.

Did you know insulin was discovered in Aberdeen? Or perhaps Alexander Ogston ( the Ogston society is named in his honour ) discovered Staphlyococcus Aureus? Health Issues in Aberdeen are same as rest of Scotland really. Only thing that stands out i know is they do colonoscopy screenings for over 50's ( or so we have been told, you may want to check that though... ).

Seriously you shouldn't need to know anything. They are more concerned that you know the course structure etc. If you say you are going to Aberdeen just cos they made a scientific breakthrough etc then it's probably going to be irrelevant to you anyway as it's quite unlikely you will be involved with any such research during your undergraduate years aside from a BsC. Even still they only let about 40 people do BsC's from what i have heard. So that's less than 1/4 of the year.

[Tess_Tickles]

The main issue might be this:

After living in Aberdeen for 10 years, a person has been subjected to the same amount of radiation (from granite) as an abdominal CT scan.

You wouldn't believe the amount of elderly people there are lumbering around like Quazy Modo with an extra arm growing out their neck in Aberdeen.

[Frank E]

I live in Aberdeen, I was brought up here got the heck out but landed back here.

The walkable catchment areas for the med school are pretty decent and amenities are close and the health problems below are concentrated in the poorer areas like in any city.

There is rather a two tier economy here, those involved in oil (high wages for craft workers topping onshore professionals salaries) and those not. There are large swathes of council estates, some of them have poor acess to amenities such as supermarkets, leisure facilities. Try and eat healthily living on an estate if the local shops don;t sell fruit and veg, you've no car, possibly a family and the transport network still means a shlep across town to get fresh food!

Hence there are significant poverty related illness in the estates, combined with poor housing and low social mobility there are many issues such as poor diet, drug and alcohol abuse, homelessness, broken families. Related illnesses are obesity heart disease, hypertension (though much lower than Scotland average), Diabetes Type 2, prevalence of Viral Hepatides in IDUs is shockingly high (HIV prevalence is very low though in all risk groups), mental health problems (think 30-60% of admissions are due to psychoactive substances).

My GP first qualified here and practiced in London, helping set up the General Practice side of a PCT in quite a deprived area of London (SE). His bio mentions that he came up here as he's a specialist in inner city medicine. The surgery I go to operate outreach clinics for people so I'm getting some of this information from his bio.

Damit, I've been up all night and can hardly string a sentence together, just found the prevalence of common diseases on the PCT site. . Hope that helps, though I wouldn't think you need to know for admission to med schoool. It's not representative of life here living as a med or any other type of student either. Whether one continues to practice in Aberdeen or not it gives a professional sociological, cultural and economic context. That helps at the end of the day in deciding specialisms, seeing where you want to fit into the bigger public health picture.

GRAMPIAN- QOF Database
Overall data for this PCT 2007/08
Disease area Prevalence Centile
Atrial Fibrillation 1.2% 39 Practice details
Asthma 5.6% 28 Practice details
Hypertension 12.2% 31 Practice details
Cancer 0.9% 23 Practice details
Coronary heart disease 4% 59 Practice details
Chronic Kidney Disease 3.3% 70 Practice details
Chronic obstructive pulmonary disease 1.4% 32 Practice details
Dementia 0.6% 96 Practice details
Depression Screening Population 6.8% 51 Practice details
Depression 5.6% 24 Practice details
Diabetes mellitus 3.5% 19 Practice details
Epilepsy 0.7% 53 Practice details
Heart Failure 0.8% 52 Practice details
Learning disabilities 0.5% 98 Practice details
Mental Health 0.7% 54 Practice details
Obesity 8.7% 70 Practice details
Smoking in chronic disease 18.5% 61 Practice details
Stroke and transient ischaemic attacks 1.7% 51 Practice details
Hypothyroidism 4% 94 Practice details
Depression Incidence 0.6% 29 Practice details

Prevalences are most similar to:
Northern Health and Social Services Board
NORTH EAST ESSEX PCT
FIFE
DARLINGTON PCT
BURY PCT
The patient booklet says all patients in for any type of colonoscopy, rigid or flexi sig are routinely screened for [MR]SA. Hmmmm. Don''t know if they screen for Clostridium. They are looking at adopting use of Pillcam (TM) anyway, a camera the size of a pill. Once slwallowed it transmits to a data logger.

[Becca-Sarah]

Heroin... apparently 4% of Aberdeen's population are on it! Free samples get handed out at Fresher's Week for those who arrive without dealer contacts.

[iBlue]

Heroin... apparently 4% of Aberdeen's population are on it! Free samples get handed out at Fresher's Week for those who arrive without dealer contacts.

Not quite. The opiate prevalence is around 2% in Aberdeen City.

[Becca-Sarah]

Not quite. The opiate prevalence is around 2% in Aberdeen City.

That'd explain the use of the word 'apparently' in my post.

[iBlue]

That'd explain the use of the word 'apparently' in my post.

To be fair, there is quite a difference though and the use of the word 'apparently' doesn't really detract from this.

When looking at prevalence, 4% is massively differently from 2%. Even Glasgow is under 4%.