Life Expectancy in the UK: England’s richest people ‘live eight years longer than the country’s poorest’
This article gives really interesting pause for thought. Life expectancy is a key indicator of the overall sustainability of places. Whilst there is evidence to suggest that rural dwellers are generally longer lived than their urban counterparts the map and narrative here show a widely differentiated regional picture. The article says:
England remains a profoundly unequal country with more than eight years separating the male life expectancy of the richest people in the south and east from the poorest in the north, a new study has found.
While great progress has been made in improving male and female life expectancy since 1990, the comprehensive Global Burden of Diseases, Injuries and Risk Factors (GBD) study found that the health gap between rich and poor has barely altered in 25 years. The figures, published in The Lancet, show that if the healthiest region of England, the south-east, were a country it would top a league of 22 industrialised nations for its health outcomes. But if the north-west were a country, it would be in the bottom five.
Although the study only looked at England, older data for Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland also places them among the worst-performing countries.
England has achieved significant gains in life expectancy, which has increased by 5.4 years between 1990 and 2013 – mostly driven by declines in deaths from heart disease and some cancers. The gains made by the country as a whole are greater than for most other wealthy countries.