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posted by Fnord666 on Thursday February 27 2020, @01:55PM   Printer-friendly
from the imagine-that dept.

Arthur T Knackerbracket has found the following story:

London, United Kingdom - A decade of "austerity" - a political programme of slashing public spending on services in a bid to reduce government budget deficits - has seen significant effects on the health and wellbeing of Britons, new research has reported.

Life expectancy has stalled and mortality rates have increased, especially for the poorest in the United Kingdom, according to a report commissioned by the Institute of Health Equity.

The report, Health Equity in England: The Marmot Review Ten Years On, was launched on Tuesday and sees Sir Michael Marmot, a former president of the World Medical Association, updating his influential 2010 report, having been asked by the then-Labour government to study the question: "Is inequality making us sick?"

Marmot's latest research analysed a wealth of data from the Office for National Statistics (ONS) and Public Health England to explore what has happened since his last landmark report. And the answer can only be summarised as: Not only is inequality making us sick but it is killing us quicker.

In the past decade - for the first time in 120 years of increasing life expectancy in England - life expectancy has stalled for those people living in the UK's 10 percent most deprived areas, particularly in the northeast.

Among women from the most deprived areas - especially British women of Bangladeshi and Pakistani origin - life expectancy fell between 2010-2012 and again between 2016-2018.

Mortality rates have meanwhile increased for people aged between 45 and 49 - the generation that grew up under former Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher's administrations. The report details how life expectancy follows the social gradient - the more deprived the area, the shorter the life expectancy.

Marmot's data analysis finds that, as the social gradient has become steeper, so inequalities in life expectancy have also increased.

Austerity has adversely affected the social determinants that impact on health in the short, medium and long term. Austerity will cast a long shadow over the lives of the children born and growing up under its effects

:- Professor Sir Michael Marmot


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  • (Score: 2) by tangomargarine on Friday February 28 2020, @04:05PM (2 children)

    by tangomargarine (667) on Friday February 28 2020, @04:05PM (#964148)

    Well sure, it's a multi-part approach--you can't keep increasing the amount you spend boundlessly, either. The Republicans do sometimes actually do as they claim they like to and cut spending, but often in the most moronic areas possible, like education and road maintenance.

    It's like how computers get more powerful every year, but software gets more bloated and complicated to fill up the extra hardware. (go ask Troutman [tomrobertshaw.net])

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  • (Score: 1) by khallow on Saturday February 29 2020, @02:02AM (1 child)

    by khallow (3766) Subscriber Badge on Saturday February 29 2020, @02:02AM (#964452) Journal

    Well sure, it's a multi-part approach--you can't keep increasing the amount you spend boundlessly, either.

    How come this acknowledgment never comes up until there's criticism of "we need more revenue"?

    It's like how computers get more powerful every year, but software gets more bloated and complicated to fill up the extra hardware.

    So what's the justification that we should increase tax revenue when we're not only not spending it well, but getting worse every time we actually do increase tax revenue?

    My take is that we already are spending too much and building up huge liabilities in the process. It's not just the debt. It's also the promises made. Here, this study purports to show that more social programs and the like means a healthier population. But it's only considering one side of the equation. The resources that go into backing those promises come from somewhere be it something concrete like someone's wealth and ability to contribute to society (such as employing people or making useful things), or something nebulous like confidence in the government and economy.

    • (Score: 2) by tangomargarine on Monday March 02 2020, @04:38PM

      by tangomargarine (667) on Monday March 02 2020, @04:38PM (#965544)

      It's one of those things I don't generally think to bring up because it's so bleeding obvious.

      Or at least, it *should* be. At the scale of the federal government, apparently logic ceases to apply, e.g. "too big to fail."

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