Social injustice cutting life expectancy, UN report says

from the Guardian

This is kind of obvious, but now that the WHO is officially saying it, it may help more to realise it's truth.

Basically, where you live can kill you. Social injustice thru poverty, poor education and bad housing is killing people. The report says "on a grand scale".


by Sarah Boseley,

The gap between rich and poor is such that a child born in the Glasgow suburb of Calton can expect to live 28 years less than one born in Lenzie, eight miles away.

This substantial gap between the life expectancy of children of the most affluent and privileged, and those who are born into deprivation and get fewer chances as they grow up is present in every society around the world, the report finds.

Inadequate education and bad housing are key factors impacting on life expectancy around the world. But some countries are better than others at closing the gap.

The report, by a World Health Organisation commission chaired by the British professor Sir Michael Marmot, shows that the poor health and shorter lives of the least fortunate has reduced life expectancy in the UK to 79 years. It trails Japan, with an average of 83, Australia, Sweden, Canada and Italy.

Stark disparities within the UK are also highlighted by the Commission on the Social Determinants of Health. A boy born in Hampstead, London, will live around 11 years longer than a boy from St Pancras, five stops away on the Northern line of the underground.

Adult death rates were generally 2.5 times higher in the most deprived areas of the UK than in the most affluent.

An example from the US recorded the fact that 886,202 deaths would have been averted between 1991 and 2000 if the death rates of white and black Americans had been equal.

Highlighting inequalities between different parts of the world, a girl born in Lesotho, southern Africa, is likely to die 42 years younger than one born in Japan.

In Sweden, one in 17,400 women die during childbirth, compared with one in eight in Afghanistan.

While healthcare, good hospitals and doctors play their part, the report says that the conditions in which children grow up and live as adults are fundamental to their chances of good health, and some have it much better than others.

But the social injustice which leads to health inequality could be eradicated within a generation, it says.

The report says a "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. Social injustice is killing on a grand scale."

The commission calls for worldwide government action to eradicate the unjust disparities in social background that lead to shorter lives. It wants every government policy and programme to be assessed for its impact on health.

Above all, it says, governments should invest in high-quality education with a major focus on intervening in the earliest years, from the womb to the age of eight. Affordable housing, encouragement for people to use healthier modes of transport, and controls on junk food and alcohol outlets are all important, as is the availability of full, fair and decent employment for all on a living wage.

Link to full article. May expire in future.