Population groups: overview

One way of understanding health in populations is to look at the health of different groups formed based on shared demographic and personal characteristics. The increasing diversity of the Scottish population has many positive aspects. Although work on health inequalities has often focussed on socioeconomic inequalities, there are also important inequalities related to the six diversity strands - age, gender, disability, religion, ethnicity and sexual orientation.

At present, this section considers health and health inequalities relating to the following groups: 

• children & young people
• disability 
• ethnic minorities
• gender
• Sexual Minorities
• older people
• prisoners
• religion, spirituality and belief