Researchers from Sheffield and Bristol have found that the gap in life expectancy between the richest and poorest quintiles in the UK is wider now than it was during the Great Depression. Despite an increase over time in the average life expectancy, the study, released in the British Medical Journal, raises an alarm bell on health inequalities in the UK.
The study examined mortality data obtained from the Office for National Statistics and the General Register Office for Scotland. The findings confirm that although the inequality gap narrowed up to the 1970s, in the last couple of decades it has widened.
Quoted in an article in the BBC, Professor Sir Michael Marmot, a health inequalities expert, commented that despite improvements in the living standards of the poor, ???health did not catch up on average, because of persisting social and economic inequalities.???
Marmot had previously led a report in February 2010 that demonstrated that people in England???s poorest areas lived an average of seven years less than people living in the richest areas. The study also found that a higher minimum wage to enjoy adequate standard of living would allow for a more health life.
Narrowing the health inequality gap has been a challenge even for the most developed countries. Article 12 of the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights affirms the right of everyone ???to the enjoyment of the highest attainable standard of physical health???. Unfortunately, the poor are often the most excluded from adequate access to health care.
A 2009 Working Paper by the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development found that in almost all OECD countries and in different health systems, deeply entrenched inequalities in health status persist depending on socioeconomic status. Disparities are evident between the rich and poor, not only in their enjoyment of good health, but in their access to and use of health care services as well.
CESR???s latest factsheet for the United States found that poor human rights outcomes in the country were related to extreme income inequalities. The U.S. has the widest income disparity of any OECD country and is one of the few rich OECD countries without a universal public health insurance program. Low public expenditure hinders the fulfillment of the right to health and many Americans are completely without health coverage.