Did you know - men in the #richest areas live nine years longer than men in the #poorest areas ! This week’s #Fact comes from the Office for National Statistics’ #Inequality in #HealthyLife #Expectancy #statistics. These data show life expectancy and healthy life expectancy, broken down by gender and by how #deprived the places are where people live (local areas were ranked by how deprived they are and then put in ten deciles, ranked from poorest to richest). These figures in David Camerons #Britain show that, on average, in 2010-12, the life expectancy of men in the poorest areas was 73.8, in the richest it was 9.1 years higher, 82.9. For women, the figures were 79.0 and 85.9. As the London Health Observatory famously put it, “traveling east from Westminster on the Jubilee line, every stop represents almost one year of life expectancy lost.” The differences in life expectancy between the richest and poorest areas are worrying enough but the ‘social gradient’ in healthy life expectancy is even more #extreme. For locations in the bottom four deciles, the gap between healthy life expectancy and life expectancy is 23.3 years for women and 19.3 years for men; for the top 3 deciles 15.3 and 12.9 years. #Women living in the poorest decile of areas will, on average, spend 66 per cent of their life in ‘good’ health; those in the richest areas will spend 83 per cent in ‘good’ health. The gap for men is less marked, but still #shocking: 71 per cent compared with 85 per cent. #Deprivation is linked to health and this issue is even more pressing for women than for men. This means that services (and, to some extent, #benefits) for people who are in poor health are more significant for deprived areas – and that the cuts affect more deprived areas most.
Posted on: Sat, 10 Jan 2015 16:05:40 +0000
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