This report presents the results of the first of two phases of research aimed at gaining a better understanding of what lies behind the so-called 'Glasgow Effect', a term increasingly used in recent years to describe the poor health status of Glasgow over and above that attributable to the city's high levels of socio-economic deprivation.

This study had two complementary objectives:

• To establish whether there is evidence of a 'Glasgow Effect', even when Glasgow is compared to its two most similar and comparable UK cities, and when based on a more robust and spatially sensitive measure of deprivation that has previously been available to researchers.
• To develop data that facilitate the identification of comparable small areas within the three cities as a focus for a second, qualitative, piece of research: specifically, to identify communities in Glasgow which experience significantly different health outcomes comapred to similarly deprived communities in Liverpool and Manchester.