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Media coverage of the relentless advice to eat less, eat better, and more the impression that the growing problem of health inequalities can largely be solved simply by badgering.
The excitement around the Henry (Health, Exercise, Nutrition for the Really Young) program in Leeds, where it can be said that there is a lively debate in the British Medical Journal about exactly what the program achieves).
The Center for Progressive Policy (CPP), published in the United States, discusses the causes of poor health, which examines how to reduce mortality. Sir Michael Marmot has a decade after his landmark review, his analysis indicates that the current population of England will lose 80 million years to socio-economic inequality, which will also take another 170 million years of healthy life.
This is based on the assumption that everyone lives in the least economically deprived areas. It averages out at 1.5 years of life and 3.2 years of healthy life lost per person.
Of the 80 million years of life lost, 30 million to 18 million to disposable income, 15 million to employment, and eight million each to crime and housing.
The fact that life expectancy has been improved for the first time in a century. The infamous gaps in life expectancy between the poorest and wealthiest parts of the country are edging upwards.
Data from the Department of Health and Social Care reveals the shocking details of how to diagnose cancer in children with cardiovascular disease and cancer.
The CPP report reveals the most of the differences in life expectancy explained by social factors: education, employment, income, crime and housing.
By some margin, the greatest extreme effect, reducing life expectancy in Great Yarmouth by 1.8 years, and 1.7 years in Fenland, Boston, Hull and Stoke-on-Trent.
Hull loses another year to poor employment, similar to Birmingham and Middlesbrough. Residents in five London boroughs – Lambeth, Newham, Barking and Dagenham, Islington and Waltham Forest – lose an average of half a year each through crime.
Cornwall, West Devon and West Somerset.
But the situation is not hopeless, if only there was the political will. CPP analysis of 35 OECD countries over the past 40 years shows that they are investing in social protection beyond their lives.
As the Institute for Fiscal Studies, the study of the impact of the Sure Start program for parents of young children. to better immunity from diseases. Purpose Sure Start funding has been cut by two-thirds, and its success should not distract from tackling the bedrock of life opportunities such as education and housing.
Legislation such as the 2012 NHS dabble in health inequalities, but to negligible effect. There are some attempts to improve access to healthcare in these areas, but this is not the same as tackling the root causes. The NHS long-term plan, published in January, addresses the symptoms but desperately needs a matching program of social action.
The CPP report drags the debate on health inequalities back to the hard facts. While healthy living advice is essential, we are never going to meet the expectations of a healthy person. With all the current talk of uniting the country, giving everyone a chance to live a long and healthy life would be a good place to start.
• Richard Vize is a public commentator and analyst
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