Poverty and Health Care in UK

Poverty and Health Care in UK



Poverty And Health Care In UK

Introduction

There is an increasing body of evidence showing that socioeconomic status, not lifestyle choices, is actually the main risk factor for serious health problems including obesity, diabetes, and heart disease. We rarely hear about it, but poverty, it seems, is bad for your health.

In March 2004 U.K. data analysts surveyed local authorities in England and Wales to determine where the highest number of local hospital admissions were for type 2 diabetes, a key indicator for diabetes, and found that obesity was more common in working-class areas where residents had poor education. In his most recent article, “Evidence links disease with poverty, so why keep blaming fries?”, Raphael cites a study published in the October 12, 2002 edition of the British Medical Journal which found that adults who spent their childhood in "poor social circumstances," even if they had better social status later in life, faced an increased risk of insulin resistance, dyslipidemia, and obesity. All of these conditions are in turn risk factors for heart disease. All are costly to treat. In fact, since diabetes itself has already been named the next world pandemic, putting more than 300 million people at risk by 2025, the study has huge ramifications for health care costs. (Wagstaff, 2002)

The National Health Services was introduced in the United Kingdom in 1948. At that time, it was believed that the gradient in health across the social classes (the highest social class had the lowest mortality rates, and the lowest social classes had the highest mortality rates) would be decreased if the financial barriers to health care were removed (Ashton, 1979). Similar arguments were used when Canada introduced its national insurance program for health - care services nearly two decades later. In the 1970s the Merrison Royal Commission on the National Health Service in the United Kingdom was surprised to find that the gradient in mortality across social classes had actually widened even though mortality rates had continued to fall.

In 1977, the Labour government established a research group, headed by Douglas Black, the Chief Scientist in the Department of Health and Social Security, to look more broadly at the factors influencing health. A major conclusion of this compelling report, often referred to as the "Black Report," (1982) was that, while health care contributed to improved health and well-being, there were socioeconomic factors of equal or greater importance in determining health and well-being. These factors were primarily causing the gradient in health across social classes.

Any attempt to measure poverty by drawing a simple line without a reference to social standards or factors other than income is fatally flawed. People's perceptions of poverty tend to change as countries get richer: in this sense the definition of poverty will always depend on what people, in a particular society, at a particular point in time, perceive as poor. This debate has particular relevance for already developed countries such as the United ...