UK is failing its children, women and young people on a grand scale, says Marmot report on links between inequality and health

Britain told social inequality has created 'public health timebomb'

• Sarah Boseley, health editor
• theguardian.com, Wednesday 30 October 2013 06.00 EDT

In Britain one child in four lives in poverty, the report says. Photograph: Christopher Furlong/Getty Images

Women and children in the UK would have longer and healthier lives if they lived in Cyprus, Italy or Spain, and Britain is facing "a public health timebomb", according to a study by an expert on inequality and health.
Sir Michael Marmot, who is known worldwide for his work on the social determinants of health, says much of the rest of Europe takes better care of its families. Life expectancy for women and death rates among the under-fives are worse in the UK, where there is also more child poverty.
The public health time bomb Marmot describes is caused by the large number of so-called Neets – young adults who are not in education, employment or training.
Women in the UK can expect to live to 83, but those born in a number of other European countries will live to a riper old age: in Germany and Cyprus, their life expectancy is 84, while in Italy, France and Spain it is 85.
And while child mortality rates in global terms are low in the UK, at 5.4 deaths per 1,000 among the under-fives, many countries do better. Some of those are in eastern Europe, such as the Czech Republic, with 3.4 deaths per 1,000 births, and Slovenia with three. Most countries in western Europe do better than the UK. Greece has four deaths per 1,000 births and Luxembourg has three. Iceland has the lowest child mortality, at 2.2 deaths per 1,000 live births, and Finland is next best, with 2.9.

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• The Telegraph

World Health Organization: unemployed youth in Britain are a public health time bomb

Young people, children and women in the UK are being failed by Government health policies, an international review finds

By Theo Merz

‘Neets’ – or young people not in employment, education or training – were likely to have worse health than their employed counterparts and the Government needed to act to ensure health inequality does not become entrenched, the authors of a report by the organization claimed.

The review also found that children and women would be better off living in many other European countries, including Eastern European states, than in the UK.

“Unemployment may be falling in the UK, but persistent high levels of the number of young people over 18 not in employment, education or training is storing up a public health time bomb waiting to explode,” said Professor Sir Michael Marmont, who chaired the study.
"We are failing too many of our children, women and young people on a grand scale.

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