IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/pal/gpprii/v49y2024i2d10.1057_s41288-024-00317-0.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

The great health challenge: levelling up the U.K

Author

Listed:
  • Les Mayhew

    (City University of London
    International Longevity Centre UK)

  • Mei Sum Chan

    (Lane Clark and Peacock LLP)

  • Andrew J. G. Cairns

    (Heriot-Watt University and the Maxwell Institute for Mathematical Sciences)

Abstract

Around the world, there are persistent and growing health inequalities both between and within countries. The U.K. Government’s flagship policy for addressing inequalities is called ‘Levelling Up’. One of its missions is to narrow the gap in healthy life expectancy (HLE) between the healthiest and unhealthiest areas in England and to improve overall HLE by 5 years by 2035. We show that smoking is one of the major causes of health inequalities. We find a 17-year difference in HLE between local authorities, and that the number of years spent in ill health tended to be greatest in areas with the highest mortality from smoking-related disease. Our aim is to see if the 5-year target could be achieved, assuming there were drastic controls on the sale and consumption of tobacco. We show that never smokers enjoy six more years of good health at age 20 than current or ex-smokers. A complete ban on smoking would lead to a 2.5-year improvement in HLE, and also lengthen the working lives of both men and women. We conclude that while a complete tobacco ban is significant, other public health measures are needed for the full achievement of the target. The paper briefly considers wider issues and suggestions for further research and its international significance.

Suggested Citation

  • Les Mayhew & Mei Sum Chan & Andrew J. G. Cairns, 2024. "The great health challenge: levelling up the U.K," The Geneva Papers on Risk and Insurance - Issues and Practice, Palgrave Macmillan;The Geneva Association, vol. 49(2), pages 270-294, April.
    • Handle: RePEc:pal:gpprii:v:49:y:2024:i:2:d:10.1057_s41288-024-00317-0
    DOI: 10.1057/s41288-024-00317-0
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://link.springer.com/10.1057/s41288-024-00317-0
    File Function: Abstract
    Download Restriction: Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1057/s41288-024-00317-0?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Marty Parker & Milica Bucknall & Carol Jagger & Ross Wilkie, 2020. "Extending Working Lives: A Systematic Review of Healthy Working Life Expectancy at Age 50," Social Indicators Research: An International and Interdisciplinary Journal for Quality-of-Life Measurement, Springer, vol. 150(1), pages 337-350, July.
    2. World Health Organization, 2023. "WHO report on the global tobacco epidemic, 2023: protect people from tobacco smoke," University of California at San Francisco, Center for Tobacco Control Research and Education qt7x18m7f9, Center for Tobacco Control Research and Education, UC San Francisco.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Habarurema Jean Baptiste & Yan Guang Cai & A. Y. M. Atiquil Islam & Nzabalirwa Wenceslas, 2022. "A Systematic Review of University Social Responsibility in Post-Conflict Societies: The Case of the Great Lakes Region of East Africa," Social Indicators Research: An International and Interdisciplinary Journal for Quality-of-Life Measurement, Springer, vol. 164(1), pages 439-475, November.
    2. Rajah, Nasir & Webb, Edward J.D. & Hulme, Claire & Kingsbury, Sarah R. & West, Robert & Martin, Adam, 2023. "How does arthritis affect employment? Longitudinal evidence on 18,000 British adults with arthritis compared to matched controls," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 321(C).
    3. Juan Manuel Pérez-Salamero González & Marta Regúlez-Castillo & Carlos Vidal-Meliá, 2021. "Differences in Life Expectancy Between Self-Employed Workers and Paid Employees when Retirement Pensioners: Evidence from Spanish Social Security Records," European Journal of Population, Springer;European Association for Population Studies, vol. 37(3), pages 697-725, July.
    4. Bavafa, Hessam & Mukherjee, Anita & Welch, Tyler Q., 2023. "Inequality in the golden years: Wealth gradients in disability-free and work-free longevity in the United States," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 92(C).
    5. Hal Caswell & Silke van Daalen, 2021. "Healthy longevity from incidence-based models: More kinds of health than stars in the sky," Demographic Research, Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research, Rostock, Germany, vol. 45(13), pages 397-452.
    6. Catherine O. Egbe & Portia Nevhungoni & Mukhethwa Londani, 2024. "Disparities in Tobacco Smoking by Sex and Employment Status: Results from South Africa’s First Global Adult Tobacco Survey," Social Sciences, MDPI, vol. 13(10), pages 1-15, October.
    7. Whitley, Elise & McCartney, Gerard & Bartley, Mel & Benzeval, Michaela, 2022. "Examining the impact of different social class mechanisms on health inequalities: A cross-sectional analysis of an all-age UK household panel study," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 312(C).

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:pal:gpprii:v:49:y:2024:i:2:d:10.1057_s41288-024-00317-0. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Sonal Shukla or Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.palgrave-journals.com/ .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.