Health gap between rich and poor Brits widens
21/01/2020
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Poor Britons may suffer worse health in old age than did people born a century ago, suggesting the gap in health is widening between the richest and the poorest, according to a study out today.
Dr Stephen Jivraj, of UCL, used responses from more than 200,000 working-age people to the General Household Survey for 1979-2011 in England, Wales and Scotland, to create nationally representative three-year ‘health’ snapshots of the generations born between 1920 and 1970.
Writing online in the Journal of Epidemiology & Community Health, he looked specifically at the differences in the prevalence of long-term conditions and self-reported general health between the richest and the poorest 30- to 59-year-olds for this period.
He found that inequalities in the prevalence of long-term conditions between the richest and poorest households had doubled among women and by 1.5 times among men born in 1920-22 compared with those born in 1968-70.
His analysis discovered that 26% men born between 1920 and 1922, living in the poorest households, said they had a limiting illness compared with 16% in the richest households. For men born between 1968 and 1970, 35% of those living in the poorest households reported a limiting illness compared 11% of those living in the richest households.
For women born between 1920 and 1922, 15% living in the poorest households reported ‘not good’ health compared with 8% in the richest households. For women born between 1968 and 1970, 19% said their health was not good, compared with 9% in the richest households.
The analysis does not consider overall life expectancy, which was hugely affected by the prevalence of childhood illnesses, the absence of antibiotics and the lack of access to health care in the 1920s.
Dr Jivraj writes: “The results presented here show a widening in health inequalities by income in later-born British birth cohorts, 1920-70. They point to a greater future demand in healthcare from people in society who will be least capable of managing their health as they enter ages when [ill health] becomes more common.”
If the inequality is not tackled, the gap will widen, he warned.
“This is doubly important because of the growing size of later-born post-war baby boom cohorts up to 1972 that will mean that there is likely to be more people in poor health irrespective of relative declines in the prevalence of [long term conditions] in later born post-war cohorts,” he says.
Jivraj S. Are self-reported health inequalities widening by income? An analysis of British pseudo birth cohorts born, 1920-1970. Journal of Epidemiology & Community Health 21 January 2020; doi: 10.1136/jech-2019-213186
http://jech.bmj.com/lookup/doi/10.1136/jech-2019-213186
