Published: Wednesday, 22nd October, 2008 12:30pm

DEATH TOWNS

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A shocking death dossier shows that people living in parts of Renfrewshire die 12 YEARS younger than their UK neighbours.

Figures in the bleak report reveal that if you live in Johnstone, Elderslie, Linwood and parts of Renfrew, you will be lucky to reach 70.

The researchers behind the study revealed that the main killers are alcohol, poor diet and cigarettes.

One of the report"s authors, Bethan Thomas, told The Gazette: 'Traditionally parts of Renfrewshire have higher death rates than south of the border.

'This can in part be put down to poor diet and more smokers and heavy drinkers than in some other areas.'

The Grim Reaper"s Road Map compiles deaths in Britain between 1981 and 2004.

It shows people in Johnstone, Elderslie and Linwood die the earliest in Renfrewshire.

The place where people live longest in the UK is Eastbourne West, surviving until they are 80.6 years old.

The average age people die at in Britain is 74.4 years, 71.2 for men and 77.4 for women.

In Scotland it"s 72.8.

But if you live in Johnstone, Elderslie or Linwood you are likely to die on average at the age of 68.7, 12 years earlier than in Eastbourne.

These local communities are in the bottom five out of 203 places in Scotland for survival rates.

Mrs Thomas, from the Department of Geography at the University of Sheffield, added: 'Also the West of Scotland including Renfrewshire has been an area of mass migration, for instance in the 1980s when there was high unemployment.

'Usually the fitter and better educated people from Renfrewshire would have been the ones to leave to find better jobs in the south.

'This would have left the less able behind.

'There is also a greater quantity of people from this part of the UK with diseases linked to industry like shipbuilding and mining compared to certain parts of the south of the country.

'These include various cancers.'

The grave report charts the most common causes of death at different ages and looks at deaths from cardiovascular, cancer, respiratory, infections, mental disorder, transport, suicide or undetermined, homicide and external causes.

Ninety nine separate causes of death are plotted, including individual cancers, suicides, assault by firearms, multiple sclerosis, pneumonia, hypothermia, falls, and Parkinson"s disease.

Each map is accompanied by a detailed description and brief geographical analysis, together with the number of people who have died from that cause, the average age of death and ratio of male to female deaths.