The All-Parliamentary Party Group for ‘left behind’ neighbourhoods and Northern Health Science Alliance have released a report showing the devastating impact of poor health for those living in deprived areas.
Local Trust have shared the list of 225 ‘left behind’ neighbourhoods, located predominantly in post-industrial and coastal areas in the North and the Midlands.
Northern Health Science Alliance highlighted some statistics from the report:
People living in ‘left behind’ neighbourhoods were 46% more likely to die from COVID-19 than those in the rest of England and 7% more likely to have died of the virus than those living in deprived non-LBN areas.
In ‘left behind’ neighbourhoods men live 3.7 years fewer than average and women 3 years fewer. People in these neighbourhoods can both expect to live 7.5 fewer years in good health than their counterparts in the rest of England.
Tackling the health inequalities facing local authorities with ‘left behind’ neighbourhoods and bringing them up to England’s average could add an extra £29.8bn to the country’s economy each year.
The research also makes a number of recommendations to overcome the health inequalities faced by people living in these areas. It calls for funded health initiatives which increase the level of control local people have over their life circumstances such as:
increased NHS funding
community piggy bank
putting community engagement which builds social cohesion, networks and infrastructure at the heart of health delivery
introducing a Community Wealth Fund to support this
Professor Clare Bambra, Professor of Public Health at the University of Newcastle and report co-author:
“Levelling up needs to urgently focus on health inequalities by addressing the unequal conditions in which we live, work and age. For too long, a lack of investment in key services has meant that more deprived, ‘left behind’ neighbourhoods – particularly in the north – have suffered disproportionately. The COVID-19 pandemic has worsened these inequalities and it will cast a long shadow across our future health and economic prosperity as a country unless we act now. That’s why levelling up health needs to be central to the government’s overall approach to levelling up the country.”
