The latest figures on life expectancy illustrate how starkly Scottish communities are affected by inequality.

National Records of Scotland data shows a 12-year gulf exists between how long males born in the most and the least deprived parts of Scotland can expect to live (for women, the gap is 8.5 years).

It is good news that life expectancy overall in Scotland is rising, and at an impressive rate. For males it has risen by 3.4 years in a decade and for women 2.1 years. This will increase pressure on the NHS in the years to come, but is no less welcome for that.

Scotland as a whole, however, still fares worse than England, with the gap between the two nations growing slightly over the last 30 years. With numerous government initiatives in that time to tackle poverty, particularly child poverty, it is very disappointing it has not diminished.

This cannot simply be attributed to higher levels of poverty in Scotland. In August, the large-scale Poverty and Exclusion Project reported that Scotland has slightly less poverty than the UK as a whole, even though nearly one-fifth of Scottish children and adults are poor.

It has often been noted that Glasgow has a worse health profile than English cities where poverty levels are similar. This has led public health experts to burrow down to find why Scottish life expectancy rates should be so comparatively low.

They speculate that some communities are mired in a complex set of issues affecting physical and mental wellbeing linked to the collapse of heavy industry and entrenched unemployment. Community and family breakdown have contributed to the dismal picture.

The latest figures confirm that Glasgow still lags behind the rest of the nation. It has the lowest life expectancy among men and women, though there are stark variations between affluent and deprived areas.

Sometimes the life expectancy in an area is skewed because of specific circumstances - a clustering of hostel accommodation housing a transient population, for instance.

Drug-related deaths, which disproportionately affect the young, while often linked to deprivation, might also dramatically affect underlying life expectancy figures.

Even so, poverty is inextricably linked to poor health and a shorter life-span, so it is deeply worrying that one in five Scottish children live in poverty, as confirmed this week by the Campaign to End Child Poverty.

In Glasgow, the figure is one in three, with more than one-quarter of children affected in Dundee, North Ayrshire, Clackmannanshire, East Ayrshire and Inverclyde.

Conservative plans to target yet more austerity savings on the poor could be calamitous. But it will take more than enlightened benefits policies to tackle the problem.

Ongoing initiatives to support new parents, encourage healthier lifestyles, improve pay and housing and extend childcare will all have to come into play if the life expectancy gap between Scotland and England, and within Scotland, is to reduce.