For researchers keen to get to grips with the link between social inequality and health, the latest report by the World Health Organisation will be essential reading.

For researchers keen to get to grips with the link between social inequality and health, the latest report by the World Health Organisation will be essential reading. Its authors hope it will be one of the most powerful collective statements on the social causes of poor health. Poverty has rarely been so well-presented.

But the report by the WHO's Commission on the Social Determinants of Health, the result of a three-year investigation by an international body of eminent academics, former heads of state and health ministers, is intended less as an academic exercise, more a blueprint for action. Just as the United Nations-led Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change sought to give a stamp of scientific authority to political arguments about the need to cut carbon emissions, the WHO's latest offering seeks to shift global consensus on the causes of health inequalities.

Poor health, the commissioners claim, is not to do with biology, but with social inequality.

"The toxic combination of bad policies, economics and politics is, in large measure, responsible for the fact that a majority of people in the world do not enjoy the good health that is biologically possible," the report states, adding: "Social injustice is killing people on a grand scale."

Given the appalling health record in areas of Glasgow, it is no surprise to find it makes several appearances in the WHO report. Though not altogether new, the figures are nevertheless shocking. A boy growing up in Glasgow's Calton, for instance, can expect to live 28 years less than if he was born around eight miles away in Lenzie. Ahead of Calton's male life expectancy of 54 are countries such as India, Lithuania, Poland and Mexico.

Possible social determinants of such poor health are not hard to come by. Across Glasgow, 40% of children are estimated to grow up in households where their parents are not in work, while high levels of crime, drug and alcohol abuse tend to exist in the same pockets of multiple deprivation that have some of the poorest levels of general health and life expectancy.

But there are other reasons why Glasgow's experience feeds into the WHO's research. Given the number of government initiatives to tackle health problems, the city has become a veritable Petri dish for social scientists to study. Alongside record investment in healthcare and housing, there are numerous efforts to join up the nebulous links between poor health, social deprivation, crime and drug and alcohol abuse, with the aim of providing a holistic solution to the problems. While the council, NHS and housing associations are often the key players in this, agencies such as the Strathclyde-based Violence Reduction Unit have also contributed, by attempting to understand the connection between endemic levels of murder and other violent crime with social factors.

Politicians seized on the WHO findings yesterday as evidence that Labour's policies had failed Glasgow.

John Mason, the newly elected Nationalist MP for Glasgow East, accused the previous devolved Scottish administration of inaction in tackling poverty in the area, pointing to the £15m funding announced in June for the Scottish Government's ministerial taskforce on health inequalities as evidence that change was now afoot.

The Tories, whose leader David Cameron used the Glasgow East by-election to call for greater individual responsibility over social and health problems such as obesity and alcohol abuse, claimed Labour had "failed the poorest in society". Shadow Health Secretary Andrew Lansley added: "Despite the increases we've seen in NHS budgets, the difference in life expectancy between the rich and poor in the country is as wide as it was in Victorian times."

But among health officials and those working in regeneration projects in Glasgow, there was a more positive view. Bruce Whyte, public health programme manager at the Glasgow-based Centre for Population Health, said that health and poverty issues had been taken seriously by the previous Scottish Executive and current Scottish Government and also praised effort at UK level to set targets on life expectancy and child poverty.

He said there had been some positive signs of progress in Glasgow in the three years since the WHO panel commission undertook its work. In the city's east end, there have been improvements in mortality rates, chronic illnesses such as heart disease, cancer and strokes, and a drop in the number of workless households.

But while these were welcome, it may be too soon to tell whether they are the product of government interventions or merely a side effect of general economic prosperity. "With the credit crunch situation, there will presumably be less jobs available in the general population and it is yet to be seen what effect this will have on more deprived areas," Mr Whyte cautioned.

Ade Kearns, professor of urban studies at the University of Glasgow, has been studying whether attempts to regenerate some of Glasgow's communities has resulted in corresponding changes to people's health. He argued that, while there has been considerable progress in regeneration, there were still aspects missing - particularly in terms of effecting cultural change. "The programmes we have are well designed and are being implemented at a reasonable pace, but when you look at them you don't see as much input from public health and education programmes," he said.

Among those who profess to be optimistic about Glasgow's chances of radically improving its health record are Dr Harry Burns, Scotland's Chief Medical Officer, whose work has had a huge influence within the WHO - as has that of Karen McClusky, deputy head of the Violence Reduction Unit.

Given the city's health record, this is unlikely to be the last report that calls for action. But it is also a safe bet that voices within Glasgow and Scotland will play a prominent role in trying to understand what action is likely to succeed.