News

A lifetime lasts ten more years in Dorset than in Glasgow

New government statistics continue to show large differences in life expectancy across the country, underlining the scale of the task facing public health strategists who are currently debating how to meet new targets on health inequality.

The official figures show a 10 year difference in life expectancy between men in East Dorset (79 years) and the city of Glasgow (69 years). Women in East Dorset can expect to live over 83 years, compared with 75 years in Glasgow.

The figures come as the Department of Health consults health professionals on how best to meet health inequality targets announced by Alan Milburn, the health secretary, in February.

The government has committed itself to reduce infant mortality in the lowest income groups, and the gap in life expectancy between poorest areas and the rest of the country, by one tenth by 2010.

The targets have been given qualified support by public health organisations, despite doubts that they can be achieved in the absence of any overall policy to narrow income inequality. The government believes the targets are achievable if they can continue to make progress on reducing child poverty and supporting those on low incomes.

But ministers have studiously ignored calls to address the top end of the income distribution by tackling boardroom pay.

Public health campaigners have also been dismayed at the lack of progress on banning tobacco advertising, despite government recognition of cancer and heart disease as ‘the big killers’. Tobacco legisation was notably absent from the Queen’s Speech.