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Blair must tackle wealth inequality, says UKPHA

Newly appointed UKPHA chief executive John Nicholson has called on the government to be ‘tough on inequalities in health and tough on the causes of inequalities in health’.

Commenting on the publication of a Bristol University report which confirms that the health gap between social classes is at its widest ever, he said: ‘The government’s top priority must be to reverse the process of widening income inequality.’

Piecemeal solutions will not work, he said. ‘The crumbs and circuses of zones and domes are unlikely to be structurally effective.’

The Bristol report, The Widening Gap, published by the Townsend Centre for International Poverty Research, suggests that the increasing health divide corresponds almost exactly with the wealth divide.

It found, for example, that infant mortality rates in Salford were twice as high as in South Suffolk, and that there were 4.2 times as many households with children living in poverty in the worst health constituencies compared to the best.

The researchers concluded that government policies will have no substantial effect on reducing inequalities unless it tackles poverty through a redistribution of income and wealth.

Mr Nicholson said that the UKPHA would be doing everything it could to bring together all those in public health concerned with ‘tackling the structural inequalities in health and wealth that are dividing people locally, nationally and globally’.

Support for the UKPHA’s role as a ‘unifying force’ had been evident at the first national forum of national non-governmental organisations in public health – called by the government in line with the Saving Lives white paper, he added.

Organisations represented included the Society for Health Promotion, British Heart Foundation, Age Concern, Mind, many of the royal societies of health, the Society of Local Authority Chief Executives, Health For All, The Scarman Trust and the CRE.

As healthmatters went to press, the UKPHA was awaiting a government response to its request for support in bidding to host the World Conference of Public Health in 2003. The UKPHA’s own annual conference takes place on March 28-29 in Harrogate. For details tel: 0121 678 8842; email: pha@ukonline.co.uk

The Widening Gap: Health inequalities and policy in Britain is published by Polity Press, price £16.99 and is available from Biblios Distribution Services. Tel: 01403 710851.