Documentary photographer Kirsty Mackay examines the causes of the ‘Glasgow Effect’ in a highly personal project. She looks at Glasgow’s excess mortality in comparison to the UK average and shifts the focus from the individual to government policy.

• The Fish That Never Swam will be published as a book later this year.

In Glasgow people’s lives are cut short: male life expectancy in Possil is 66, in Penilee three young people took their own lives within the space of one week this June, suicide in Glasgow is 30% higher than in English cities, male life expectancy is seven years short of the UK average and women’s is four years less. This is not isolated to areas of deprivation – Glaswegians across all social classes experience a 15% reduction in life expectancy.

We have known about the “Glasgow Effect” for more than a decade. However, the root causes for Glasgow’s excess mortality are not in the public domain. The explanation lies in government policy – not with the individual and their lifestyle choices. Local and central government policies created an environment where segregation, alienation, mass unemployment, the generational trauma that followed, poverty and deprivation constitute a public health concern. During the 1970s and 80s Glasgow was in a “managed decline”. Unbeknown at the time, the city was starved of funding from Westminster.