Climate crisis will amplify the UK’s existing health inequalities
The health inequalities between different ethnicities, neighbourhoods and social classes are already stark, with millions of women in the most deprived areas in England dying almost eight years earlier than those from wealthier areas.
But according to the UK Health Security Agency’s (UKHSA) report, these disparities will worsen as the impact the climate crisis has on health is disproportionately negative to the most disadvantaged groups.
These particular groups include people with disabilities, homeless people and people living in local authorities with high levels of deprivation.
Sir Michael Marmot, the director of the Institute of Health Equity and the author of the landmark Marmot review into health inequalities in 2010, said that climate breakdown can make health inequalities worse.
Prof Lea Berrang Ford, the head of the Centre for Climate and Health Security at the UKHSA, made it clear that the negative health effects of climate breakdown will not be distributed equally across the UK, social determinants or generations.
The report said that children and young people will experience increasingly severe weather into their retirement, with effects persisting or increasing for their children.
Ford said: “The distribution of the impacts of climate change do not just differ across geographic regions, but also across different socio-demographic groups.
“Climate change is well recognised as likely to exacerbate existing health inequalities, and across a range of health impacts the most vulnerable groups are adults over 65 years old, children and those with pre-existing medical conditions.”
Source: The Guardian, 11 December 2023