Health gap between rich & poor

[Hammy02]

In the news this morning it stated that the gap between the health of the rich and the poor is greater than any time since records began.
Am I alone in thinking this is due to lack of intelligence/common sense rather than income? I was made redundant a while ago and my income is about 10% what it was when I was working but my food/exercise choices have not changed. Healthy food is cheaper than packet rubbish and a run/long walk is free.

It's due to a number of things including education, access to services, the ability to fight for suitable healthcare, overcrowding, poor nutrition, poor lifestyles

i.e. the health inequalities are completely interlinked with inequalities in education, employment, opportunity etc.

GP commissioning IMO is only going to exacerbate the problem and the postcode lottery will become a surgery lottery

I think this info should be broken down more if it's to be useful and fewer assumptions made. What are people actually dying of and are there any significant differences in the type of condition relative to your income? Smoking, for example, is an expensive and often fatal hobby which seems to be more popular in lower income groups. Why is that?

I think there's a few things going on here and as Chil1234 says it's hard to be constructive without knowing more details.

The first to to note is that "poverty" is relative not absolute. "Poverty" is defined as earning less than 60% of the median-average wage.

So you sort the entire population of the country by what wage they earn, and the person right in the middle is earning the median wage.

You could give every single person below that media a pay rise to £1 less than the median wage and the median wage wouldn't move one penny.

So being "poor" in this country doesn't mean you've not got a house (though it might) or you can't eat (though again it might) but just that you earn less than 60% of what that middle person does.

Compared to the past and other countries many of those who are classified as "poor" are better off than they ever have been.

Then throw into the mix the plethora of cheap take aways that are now available (yes they are more expensive than cooking healthily but they're more affordable and more widespread than they ever have been).

So it's now more possible for many of the "poor" to choose an unhealthy diet than it ever has been in the past. And I think that's playing a big part in all of this.

Basically in my grandparent's time chips were a real treat. I'm sure they would have had them every night if they could, but the couldn't, they had no choice but to eat as cheaply as possible, and that meant healthily.

More people now have a choice, and unsurprisingly they're going for the tasty treats.

So unhealthy diets say far more about people's increased ability to afford what they want rather than education or that the previous generations were somehow wiser with their dietary choices.

that exactly what public health services do Chil, to know where the money should go. What are the differences in mortality and morbidity in different populations and why.
And very soon it'll be your local GP managing all this work

My GP's actually looking forward to the fundholder thing. It's a big practice and he tells me it never looked back since they employed a manager to deal with the 'business' side... they get on with the doctoring.

I hope people are looking into this more fully than the 'poor die earlier than rich' headline suggests. Suspect if we took alcohol and cigarettes out of the equation we'd find a much flatter picture, however.

I'm sure it would but i think it's not just that

"Suspect if we took alcohol and cigarettes out of the equation we'd find a much flatter picture, however."

And as said above diet...

There was a comment on the DM's take on this story that seemed to say (it's gone now) that GMTV said that children being killed in road accidents was much higher in deprived areas.

Of course their take on this was that it was neglect.

A more pragmatic explanation might be that in less well off areas children are more likely to be out playing in the street due to smaller, or no, gardens.

However it does show that there might be some very complicated and non-obvious factors behind all of this.

yes the black repot talks about that, poverty is linked to more childhood accidental deaths too

I Really dont think this is the issue its made out to be:

As unfair as it is, the fact is there are limited resources in the world. If someone with a hella lot of money is willing to shell out for some advanced treatment that is not feasible or sustainable for others, it should still be avalible.
That is how people are motivated to improve ANY industry, the medical included: With the assumption that someone will be willing to pay more for a better service.

I don't think it's a matter of 'advanced treatment' available to the rich. The treatment available through the NHS is largely the same as is offered privately. The same surgeons doing the same operations, etc. Waiting lists are much more comparable - used to be a very wide difference in the past. Being able to afford revolutionary new treatment might account for a few hundred people still alive rather than dead each year, but I don't think it would be statistically significant.

I live in one of the areas where life expectancy is low. In our town you can, on average, expect to live 14 1/2 years fewer than someone in the more affluent town around the bay.

THere are a lot of factors involved in this, low income, poor housing, poor education, lack of services, lack of facilities, lack of anywhere for children to play, smoking, drinking, drug abuse, very high unemployment.... but a major factor, which always seems to be ignored, is lack of hope. Many people here are trapped in their situation because of a combination of circumstances. THey can see no hope of change or of anything better, so they see little point in trying to improve things.

We have had some of the highest unemployment in the country for decades, also some of the lowest wages. Our schools perform at about 20% of the national average, our youngsters (many of them) are unemployable even if there were jobs. Our housing is terrible. For many people here, there is no point in trying to give up smoking/drinking/drugs or whatever because they can't see their overall situation ever being any better.

It's hard to explain, but a lot of people in this area are kind of defeated from the outset by the circumstances of their lives. To address the health inequalities the whole raft of social inequalities has to be tackled.

agree with stressedHEmum. It is all they know, and have very little hope , knowledge of amother way of life and no aspirations. It is really sad but tragic for the children being born into this. I was raised in a poor working class town on a council estate, the kide roamed the streets and were left to our own devices but it was so different from now. Many worked and had self respect and many of their children did well in work and further education but even then their very areas and estates that were still considered lower level. What went so terribly wrong?

You can't legislate to provide 'hope'. That's something that comes from within, surely? There are people extremely poor parts of the world shifting heaven and earth to get their children into a school or a hospital or onto a boat out because they understand fully that with an education, some immunisiations or a change of location their children at least stand a chance of having a better life. In our society, we provide everyone with a free education & free healthcare. Paradise by other people's standards.

Yes, but you can't compare this country to economically undeveloped ones. Poverty in this country is relative, not absolute and the disparity between those who have and those who don't is wide and dispiriting if you are on the don't end of things. In areas like this there is a complete lack of aspiration amongst many people but it is fuelled by a poverty of opportunity. It's compounded by the fact that our schools perform at 20% of the national average so many of our young folk have no real education to speak of that they can use to get out of here. WE have a sort of lost generation in their teens here and it's only getting worse.

If your schools are crap, your housing poor, your chances of getting a job slim to nil, your environment lacking in any kind of facilities and you are surrounded by people leading the same kind of life, you don't have a whole lot of chances or choices.

No one can legislate to provide hope, but surely something could be done to improve people's chances by improving the raft of social and economic problems that are endemic in places like this.

I've said it before and I'll say it again, no doubt. You have to live in a place like this to understand what it's like and how people can end up the way they do.