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Found 1,218 results
  1. News Article
    Stark disparities in cancer rates between different ethnic groups have been laid bare in new research showing black people are twice as likely to get prostate cancer while white people have double the chance of getting skin and lung cancers. The analysis of NHS Digital cancer registration data by Cancer Research UK provides the most complete recording ever of cancer rates by ethnicity in England, offering crucial data on how some rates vary. The results are published in the British Journal of Cancer. White people in England are more than twice as likely to get some types of cancer, including melanoma skin cancer, oesophageal, bladder and lung cancers compared with people from black, Asian or mixed ethnic backgrounds, according to the research. Black people are almost three times more likely to get myeloma and almost twice as likely to get prostate cancer compared with white people. The study also found that black people are more likely to get stomach and liver cancers, and Asian people are more likely to get liver cancers. Genetics are thought to play a part in some of the findings, Cancer Research UK said. For example, white people are more likely to get skin cancer because they tend to burn more easily in the sun. Preventable risk factors also appear to be involved, the charity added, as white people are more likely than most minority ethnic groups to smoke or be overweight or obese. These are the two largest risk factors in developing cancer and help explain why white people are more likely to get some types of cancer than other ethnic groups. Read full story Source: The Guardian, 2 March 2022
  2. News Article
    A new pregnancy screening tool cuts the risk of baby loss among women from black, Asian and ethnic minority backgrounds to the same level as white women, research suggests. The app calculates a woman's individual risk of pregnancy problems. In a study of 20,000 pregnant women, baby death rates in ethnic groups were three times lower than normal when the tool was used. Experts say the new approach can help reduce health inequalities. The screening tool is already in use at St George's Hospital in London and is being tried out at three other maternity units in England, with hopes it could be rolled out to 20 centres within two years. Researchers from Tommy's National Centre for Maternity Improvement, led by the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists and the Royal College of Midwives, developed the new tool. Professor Basky Thilaganathan, who led the research team at St George's Hospital, said the new approach could "almost eliminate a large source of the healthcare inequality facing black, Asian and minority ethnic pregnant women". "We can personalise care for you and reduce the chances of having a small baby, pre-eclampsia and losing your baby," he said. The current system of a tick-box checklist to assess pregnancy risk has been around for 70 years, and is limited. The new digital tool, which uses an algorithm to calculate a woman's personal risk, can detect high-risk women more accurately and prevent complications in pregnancy, the researchers say. Both pregnant women and maternity staff can upload information on their pregnancy and how they are feeling to the app during antenatal appointments and at other times. Dr Edward Morris, president of the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists, said it was "unacceptable" that black, Asian and minority ethnic women faced huge inequalities on maternity outcomes. "The digital tool provides a practical way to support women with personalised care during pregnancy and make informed decisions about birth. Read full story Read Tommy's press release Source: BBC News, 28 February 2022
  3. News Article
    The NHS has been accused by a major charity of failing to address the emerging gap in Covid booster vaccine coverage for racialised communities. Blood Cancer UK has told The Independent it has “serious concerns” over what it claims is a “shocking” lack of urgency from the NHS in addressing the gap in booster vaccine doses for immunocompromised people from black and minority ethnic communities. The charity has said NHS England has failed to set out any “concrete” plans since it revealed 84% of immunocompromised people from a white British background had three vaccine doses by mid-December, compared to just 43% of immunocompromised people from a Pakistani background. The news comes after the government announced people over 75 and immunocompromised children would be eligible to receive a fourth Covid vaccine by Spring. According to an analysis published by Open Safely, a team of data scientists at Oxford University, of those who are part of the shielding population, as of the 22 February just 72% of Black people have had their booster does, and 73% of south Asian people. This compares to 89% of white people. NHS England has highlighted a number of actions it is taking to address the situation such as using pop-up sites within communities and providing free transport. Speaking with The Independent chief executive of Blood Cancer UK Gemma Peters, said: “We have serious concerns about how the poor roll-out of third doses for the immunocompromised has left people from some communities much less well-protected than people from a white British background. But while it is deeply troubling that a racial disparity in access to third vaccine doses has been allowed to develop, just as shocking has been NHS England’s apparent lack of urgency in addressing it." Read full story Source: The Independent, 25 February 2022
  4. News Article
    Pregnancy-related deaths among US mothers climbed higher in the pandemic’s first year, continuing a decades-long trend that disproportionately affects Black people, according to a new government report. Overall in 2020, there were almost 24 deaths per 100,000 births, or 861 deaths total, numbers that reflect mothers dying during pregnancy, childbirth or the year after. The rate was 20 per 100,000 in 2019. Among Black people, there were 55 maternal deaths per 100,000 births, almost triple the rate for white people. The report from the National Center for Health Statistics does not include reasons for the trend and researchers said they have not fully examined how Covid-19, which increases risks for severe illness in pregnancy, might have contributed. The coronavirus could have had an indirect effect. Many people put off medical care early in the pandemic for fear of catching the virus, and virus surges strained the healthcare system, which could have had an impact on pregnancy-related deaths, said Eugene Declercq, a professor and maternal death researcher at Boston University School of Public Health. He called the high rates “terrible news” and noted that the US has continually fared worse in maternal mortality than many other developed countries. Reasons for those disparities are not included in the data, but experts have blamed many factors including differences in rates of underlying health conditions, poor access to quality healthcare and structural racism. Read full story Source: The Guardian, 23 February 2022
  5. News Article
    A taskforce has been set up to tackle disparities in maternity care experienced by women belonging to ethnic minorities and those living in deprived areas. Black women are 40% more likely to miscarry than white, studies suggest. Maternal death rates are also higher among black and Asian women. Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists head Dr Edward Morris told BBC News implicit racial bias was affecting some women's care. Patient Safety and Primary Care Minister Maria Caulfield said: "For too long disparities have persisted which mean women living in deprived areas or from ethnic minority backgrounds are less likely to get the care they need and, worse, lose their child. "We must do better to understand and address the causes of this. "The Maternity Disparities Taskforce will help level-up maternity care across the country, bringing together a wide range of experts to deliver real and ambitious change so we can improve care for all women - and I will be monitoring progress closely." Chief midwifery officer Prof Jacqueline Dunkley-Bent, who will co-chair the taskforce, said: "The NHS's ambition is to be the safest place in the world to be pregnant, give birth and transition into parenthood - all women who use our maternity services should receive the best care possible." The taskforce will meet every two months and focus on: improving personalised care and support plans addressing how wider societal issues affect maternal health improving education and awareness of health when trying to conceive, such as taking supplements and maintaining a healthy weight increasing access to maternity care for all women and developing targeted support for those from the most vulnerable groups empowering women to make evidence-based decisions about their care. Read full story Source: BBC News, 23 February 2022 Source: BBC News,
  6. News Article
    Medical records contain a plethora of information, from a patient’s diagnoses and treatments to marital status to drinking and exercise habits. They also note whether a patient has followed medical advice. A health provider may add a line stating that the patient is “noncompliant” or “non-adherent,” signalling that the patient has been uncooperative and may exhibit problematic behaviours. Two large new studies in the US found that such terms, while not commonly used, are much more likely to appear in the medical records of Black patients than in those of other races. The first study, published in Health Affairs, found that Black patients were two and a half times as likely as white patients to have at least one negative descriptive term used in their electronic health record. About 8% of all patients had one or more derogatory terms in their charts, the study found. The most common negative descriptive terms used in the records were “refused,” “not adherent,” “not compliant” and “agitated.” The second study, published in JAMA Network Open, analysed the electronic health records of nearly 30,000 patients at a large urban academic medical centre between January and December 2018. The study looked for what researchers called “stigmatising language,” comparing the negative terms used to describe patients of different racial and ethnic backgrounds as well as those with three chronic diseases: diabetes, substance use disorders and chronic pain. Overall, 2.5% of the notes contained terms like “nonadherence,” “noncompliance,” “failed” or “failure,” “refuses” or “refused,” and, on occasion, “combative” or “argumentative.” But while 2.6% of medical notes on white patients contained such terms, they were present in 3.15% of notes about Black patients. Looking at some 8,700 notes about patients with diabetes, 6,100 notes about patients with substance use disorder and 5,100 notes about those with chronic pain, the researchers found that patients with diabetes — most of whom had type 2 diabetes, which is often associated with excess weight and called a “lifestyle” disease — were the most likely to be described in negative ways. Nearly 7% of patients with diabetes were said to be noncompliant with a treatment regimen, or to have “uncontrolled” disease, or to have “failed.” The labels have consequences, warns Dr. Schillinger, who directs the Center for Vulnerable Populations at San Francisco General Hospital and Trauma Center. “Patients whose physicians tend to judge, blame or vilify them are much less likely to have trust in their doctors, and in the medical system overall,” Dr. Schillinger said. “Having health care providers who are trustworthy — who earn their patients’ trust by not judging them unfairly — is critical to ensuring optimal health and eliminating health disparities.” Read full story (paywalled) Source: The New York Times, 20 February 2022
  7. News Article
    Tonjanic Hill was overjoyed in 2017 when she learned she was 14 weeks pregnant. Despite a history of uterine fibroids, she never lost faith that she would someday have a child. But, just five weeks after confirming her pregnancy she seemed unable to stop urinating. She didn’t realize her amniotic fluid was leaking. Then came the excruciating pain. “I ended up going to the emergency room,” said Hill, now 35. “That’s where I had the most traumatic, horrible experience ever.” An ultrasound showed she had lost 90% of her amniotic fluid. Yet, over the angry protestations of her nurse, Hill said, the attending doctor insisted Hill be discharged and see her own OB-GYN the next day. The doctor brushed off her concerns, she said. The next morning, her OB-GYN’s office rushed her back to the hospital. But she lost her baby. Black women are less likely than women from other racial groups to carry a pregnancy to term — and in Harris County, where Houston is located, when they do, their infants are about twice as likely to die before their 1st birthday as those from other racial groups. Black fetal and infant deaths are part of a continuum of systemic failures that contribute to disproportionately high Black maternal mortality rates. “This is a public health crisis as it relates to Black moms and babies that is completely preventable,” said Barbie Robinson, who took over as executive director of Harris County Public Health in March 2021. “When you look at the breakdown demographically — who’s disproportionately impacted by the lack of access — we have a situation where we can expect these horrible outcomes.” Read full story Source: KFF Health News, 24 August 2023
  8. News Article
    An NHS body is encouraging women with breast cancer from minority backgrounds to take part in more clinical trials, after research found they are under-represented in studies that can offer life-saving treatment. The pilot project, supported by the NHS Race and Health Observatory, is intended to improve representation in breast cancer clinical trials partly through culturally sensitive communications to people from racially diverse backgrounds. Research from the UK Health Security Agency suggests young black women are more likely to have aggressive breast cancer tumours, experience poorer care and have higher mortality rates, but are significantly under-represented in clinical research. Their lack of inclusion in trials could be partly down to distrust of the research process and a lack of knowledge, according to research by the UK’s National Institute for Health Research. The project, which works in conjunction with Macmillan Cancer Support and the pharmaceutical company Roche, will run for a year and look at developing new ways for people with breast cancer to access clinical trials. It will develop action plans to improve representation and provide enhanced support for patients. Read full story Source: The Guardian, 31 August 2023
  9. News Article
    In the most deprived areas of England and Scotland, the nearest 24/7 accessible defibrillator is on average a round trip of 1.8 km away—over a mile—according to a pioneering study supported by the British Heart Foundation (BHF). The researchers, led by Dr Chris Wilkinson, senior lecturer in cardiology at Hull York Medical School, used data from national defibrillator network The Circuit to calculate the median road distance to a defibrillator with unrestricted public access across Great Britain's 1.7 million postcodes. Among the 78,425 defibrillator locations included, the median distance from the centre of a postcode to a 24/7 public access defibrillator was 726.1 metres – 0.45 miles. In England and Scotland, the more deprived an area was, the farther its average distance from a 24/7-accessible defibrillator – on average 99 metres more in England, and 317 metres farther in Scotland for people living in the most compared with the least deprived areas. There was no link between defibrillator location and deprivation in Wales. The researchers said they hoped the findings, presented at the European Society of Cardiology (ESC) Congress in Amsterdam and published in the journal Heart, would lead to more equal access to defibrillators. They noted that there were over 30,000 out-of-hospital cardiac arrests (OHCA) annually in the UK; in England nearly 30% happened at weekends, and 40% between 6pm and 6am. Read full story Read research study: Automated external defibrillator location and socioeconomic deprivation in Great Britain (28 August 2023) Source: Medscape, 29 August 2023
  10. News Article
    The cost of living squeeze is a significant factor in some stillbirths, according to case reviews carried out in one of England’s most deprived areas. The review was undertaken in Bradford last year, and concluded: ”the current financial crisis is impacting on the ability of some women to attend essential antenatal appointments”. Missing these appointments was a factor in a range of maternity safety events, including stillbirths, it said. The researchers are now calling for new national funding to help ensure expectant parents do not miss important appointments because they cannot afford to attend. The research findings include: ‘Did not attend’ rates increased due to lack of funds for transport to antenatal appointments; “Lack of credit on phones prevented communication between women and maternity services, for example, making [them] unable to rearrange scans or appointments”; Wide spread incidence of “digital poverty, [for example] a lady with type 1 [diabetes] was unable to monitor her glycaemic control over night due to only having one phone charger in the house”; and “Families with babies on a neonatal unit going without food in order to finance transport to and from the unit.” Read full story (paywalled) Source: HSJ, 25 August 2023
  11. News Article
    The United States is in the middle of a maternal health crisis. Today, a woman in the US is twice as likely to die from pregnancy than her mother was a generation ago. Statistics from the World Health Organization show the United States has one of the highest rates of maternal death in the developed world. Women in the US are 10 or more times likely to die from pregnancy-related causes than mothers in Poland, Spain or Norway. Some of the worst statistics come out of the South - in places like Louisiana, where deep pockets of poverty, health care deserts and racial biases have long put mothers at risk. Dr Rebekah Gee: The state of maternal health in the United States is abysmal. And Louisiana is the highest maternal mortality in the US. So, in the developed world, Louisiana has the worst outcomes for women having babies." A third of Louisiana's parishes are maternal health deserts – meaning they don't have a single OB-GYN, leaving more than 51 thousand women in the state without easy access to care and three times more likely to die of pregnancy related causes. Read full story Source: CBS News, 20 August 2023
  12. News Article
    Hundreds of migrants have declined NHS treatment after being presented with upfront charges over the past two years, amid complaints the government’s “hostile environment” on immigration remains firmly in place. Data compiled by the Observer under the Freedom of Information Act shows that, since January 2021, 3,545 patients across 68 hospital trusts in England have been told they must pay upfront charges totalling £7.1m. Of those, 905 patients across 58 trusts did not proceed with treatment. NHS trusts in England have been required to seek advance payment before providing elective care to certain migrants since October 2017. It covers overseas visitors and migrants ruled ineligible for free healthcare, such as failed asylum seekers and those who have overstayed their visa. The policy is not supposed to cover urgent or “immediately necessary” treatment. However, there have been multiple cases of people wrongly denied treatment. Dr Laura-Jane Smith, a consultant respiratory physician and member of the campaign group Medact, said: “I had a patient we diagnosed as an emergency with lung cancer but they were told they would be charged upfront for treatment and then never returned for a follow-up. This was someone who had been in the country for years but who did not have the right official migration status. A cancer diagnosis is devastating. To then be abandoned by the health service is inhumane.” Read full story Source: The Guardian, 20 August 2023
  13. News Article
    HSJ has published an interactive map of local NHS waits around England in June 2023, showing the pressures, with links to all the details by organisation and specialty. It shows the local picture on 18-week referral to treatment taken from the latest Referral to Treatment (RTT) waiting times data released by NHS England. View the map Read full story (paywalled) Source: HSJ, 14 August 2023
  14. News Article
    Bisexual people experience worse health outcomes than other adults in England, a study has found. Data from lesbian, gay or bisexual (LGB) patients indicates these groups have poorer health outcomes compared to those who identify as heterosexual. The new findings indicate that bisexual people face additional health disparities within an already marginalised community. Experts from the Brighton and Sussex Medical School, and Anglia Ruskin University who led the analysis of more than 835,000 adults in England, suggest the differences could result from unique prejudice and discrimination that can come from both mainstream society and LGBTQ+ communities. Read full story Source: The Independent, 25 July 2023
  15. News Article
    America is facing an intensified push to pass stalled federal legislation to address the US’s alarming maternal mortality rates and glaring racial disparities which have led to especially soaring death rates among Black women giving birth. Maternal mortality rates in the US far outpace rates in other industrialised nations, with rates more than double those of countries such as France, Canada, the UK, Australia, Germany. Moms in the US are dying at the highest rates in the developed world. Overall maternal mortality rates in the US spiked during the pandemic. Maternal deaths in the US rose 40% from 861 in 2020 to 1,205 in 2021, a rate of 32.9 deaths per 100,000 live births. For Black women, these maternal mortality rates were significantly higher, at 69.9 deaths per 100,000 live births in 2021. These racial disparities in maternal health outcomes have persisted and worsened for years as the number of women who die giving birth in the US has more than doubled in the last two decades. The CDC noted in a review of maternal mortalities in the US from 2017 to 2019, that 84% of the recorded maternal deaths were preventable. Read full story Source: The Guardian, 23 July 2023
  16. News Article
    Soon after her son Jaxson was born, Lauren Clarke spotted that his eyes were yellow and bloodshot. “We kept asking if he had jaundice, but each time we were told to keep feeding him and just put Jaxson in front of a window,” she says. It was only when Clarke was readmitted six days later with an infection that Jaxson’s jaundice was detected by a midwife. By this time, his levels were becoming dangerously high. “We spent a further five days in hospital for Jaxson to be treated with light therapy and antibiotics. If I hadn’t had to go back to hospital, he could have died or had serious long-term health conditions,” she says. This week, the NHS race and health observatory will announce new funding for research into the efficacy of jaundice screening in black, Asian and minority ethnic newborns on the back of a recent report showing that tests to assess newborn babies’ health are not effective for non-white children. The research cannot come too soon. Jaxson’s aunt, Gemma Poole, a midwife from Nottingham, created her company, the Essential Baby Company, to develop resources and training about the specific needs of women and babies with black and brown skins, after Jaxson’s jaundice was initially missed by clinicians. Poole believes the trauma her nephew, brother and sister-in-law had to go through could have been avoided if health professionals had known better ways to spot jaundice in non-white babies. “The colour of gums, the soles of the feet and hands, the whites of eyes, how many wet and dirty nappies and if the baby is waking for feeds and alert could be more reliable indicators if a black or brown baby has jaundice,” she says. Read full story Source: The Guardian, 16 July 2023
  17. News Article
    Black women in the Americas bear a heavier burden of maternal mortality than their peers, but according to a report released Wednesday by the United Nations, the gap between who lives and who dies is especially wide in the world’s richest nation — the United States. Of the region’s 35 countries, only four publish comparable maternal mortality data by race, according to the report, which analyzed the maternal health of women and girls of African descent in the Americas: Brazil, Colombia, Suriname and the United States. And while the United States had the lowest overall maternal mortality rate among those four nations, the report said Black women and girls were three times more likely than their U.S. peers to die while giving birth or in the six weeks afterward. “The risk factor is racism,” said Joia Crear-Perry, an OB/GYN and founder of the National Birth Equity Collaborative, a nonprofit group dedicated to eliminating racial inequities in birth outcomes and one of the report’s co-sponsors. “This report drives this home over and over. When your pain is ignored, when your blood pressure is ignored, you die, and that happens across the Americas.” Read full story (paywalled) Source: The Washington Post, 12 July 2023
  18. News Article
    A growing number of disadvantaged and vulnerable women living in one of the poorest parts of England are dying prematurely because public services are not meeting their needs, according to a report. Research published on Monday calculates that in 2021, a woman in the north-east of England was 1.7 times more likely to die early as a result of suicide, addiction or domestic murder than women living in England and Wales as a whole. Laura McIntyre, the head of women and children’s services at Changing Lives, described the report as shocking. “But I’m more saddened,” she said. “To not reach your 40th birthday is just not right.” The report says the reasons for early and avoidable deaths are complicated, involving a patchwork of unaddressed issues including domestic abuse, debt, poverty, mental and physical ill-health, alcohol and substance misuse, and housing problems. But the conclusions are striking. “Put plainly, women living in the north-east are more likely to live shorter lives, to spend a larger proportion of time living in poor health and to die prematurely from preventable diseases,” the report states. Read full story Source: The Guardian, 10 July 2023
  19. News Article
    Maternal mortality rates have doubled in the US over the last two decades - with deaths highest among black mothers, a new study suggests. American Indian and Alaska Native women saw the greatest increase, the study in Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA) said. Southern states had the highest maternal death rates across all race and ethnicity groups, the study found. In 1999, there were an estimated 12.7 deaths per 100,000 live births and in 2019 that figure rose to 32.2 deaths per 100,000 live births in 2019, according to the research, which did not study data from the pandemic years. Unlike other studies, this one examined disparities within states instead of measuring rates at the national level, and it monitored five racial and ethnic groups. Dr Allison Bryant, one of the study's authors, said the findings were a call to action "to understand that some of it is about health care and access to health care, but a lot of it is about structural racism". She said some current policies and procedures "may keep people from being healthy". Read full story Source: BBC News, 4 July 2023
  20. News Article
    The government has rejected calls to set a target and strategy to end ‘appalling’ disparities in maternal deaths. In response to a Commons women and equalities committee report, published on Friday, ministers said a “concrete target does not necessarily focus resource and attention through the best mechanisms”. The response added: “We do not believe a target and strategy is the best approach towards progress.” The government said disparities will be monitored through local maternity and neonatal systems, which are partnerships comprising commissioners, providers and local authorities. A recommendation to increase the annual budget for maternity services to up to £350m per year, backed by the now chancellor Jeremy Hunt, and maternity investigator Donna Ockenden, was also rejected. Read full story Source: HSJ, 3 July 2023
  21. News Article
    Black patients at trusts most affected by 2016’s junior doctors’ strike suffered significantly more than their white or Asian counterparts, a new analysis has suggested. Research by the Institute for Fiscal Studies analysed 30-day readmission rates after the 48-hour junior doctors’ strike in April 2016. The co-authors of the research, George Stoye and Max Warner, said: “We find that patients treated in hospitals that were more exposed to the strike did not, on average, experience worse outcomes.” However, they added that black patients were “more negatively affected by exposure to the strikes than white patients in the same hospitals”. The April 2016 strike affected both elective and emergency care and was the last before the dispute ended. The current junior doctors’ strike has been ongoing since March. It also affects emergency and elective care but stoppages have been longer, with a five-day strike planned in July. Read full story (paywalled) Source: HSJ, 27 June 2023
  22. News Article
    The Home Office has been accused of abandoning 55 asylum seekers with a range of severe disabilities and life-limiting conditions at a former care home in an Essex seaside town. The asylum seekers, who fled various conflict zones including Sudan and Afghanistan, are struggling with a range of health conditions they have suffered from since childhood or life-changing injuries suffered in war zones. One told the Guardian: “Everybody is suffering in this place. It used to be a care home but now there is no care. We are free to come and go but to me, this place feels like an open prison. We have just been left here and abandoned.” Those living in the former care home are struggling with health conditions including loss of limbs, blindness, deafness and mobility issues requiring a wheelchair – although not all have been able to access one. At least eight are paraplegic. They were placed in the former care home, which opened in November, by Home Office officials. It is staffed like a standard Home Office asylum seeker hotel with security guards and reception staff but does not have trained care workers or nurses there as part of the contract. Read full story Source: The Guardian, 23 June 2023
  23. News Article
    A senior NHS leader has warned of a “life-threatening” situation in which clinically vulnerable people are being admitted to hospital after having their energy supplies disconnected. Sam Allen, chief executive of North East and North Cumbria Integrated Care Board (ICB), has written to Ofgem today to raise “serious concerns” that vulnerable people have seen their electricity or gas services disconnected as a result of non-payment. In the letter, which the ICB has published on its website, Ms Allen said the impact of energy supplies being cut off “will be life threatening for some people” and place additional demand on already stretched health and social care services. She wrote: “It has come to light that we are starting to see examples where clinically vulnerable people have been disconnected from their home energy supply which has then led to a hospital admission. “This is impacting on people who live independently at home, with the support from our community health services team and are reliant on using electric devices for survival. “An example of this is oxygen; and there will be many other examples. There is also a similar concern for clinically vulnerable people with mental health needs who may find themselves without energy supply. “Put simply, the impact of having their energy supply terminated will be life threatening for some people as well as placing additional demands on already stretched health and social care services.” Read full story (paywalled) Source: HSJ, 5 September 2022
  24. News Article
    Responding to the Ofgem announcement on the energy price cap, Jo Bibby, Director of Health at the Health Foundation said: 'Today’s announcement confirms the mounting financial pressures facing people this winter. 'Cold, damp homes make people ill. When people are having to make a choice between heating and eating, their health is going to suffer. Many will face the stress of managing debt and, in the long run, the price will be paid in poorer health, more pressure on the NHS, and fewer people in work. 'The cost-of-living crisis should be a spur for action for the new government – bringing forward the Health Disparities White Paper. In particular, it must deliver significant emergency support in the autumn, targeted at lower-income families who are most at risk of poorer health. Without the speed and scale of action we saw through the pandemic, there is a risk the cost-of-living crisis becomes another health crisis.' Read full story Source: The Health Foundation, 26 August 2022
  25. News Article
    The average life expectancy of Americans fell precipitously in 2020 and 2021, the sharpest two-year decline in nearly 100 years and a stark reminder of the toll exacted on the nation by the continuing coronavirus pandemic. In 2021, the average American could expect to live until the age of 76, federal health researchers reported on Wednesday. The figure represents a loss of almost three years since 2019, when Americans could expect to live, on average, nearly 79 years. The reduction has been particularly steep among Native Americans and Alaska Natives, the National Center for Health Statistics (NCHS) reported. Average life expectancy in those groups was shortened by four years in 2020 alone. “Even small declines in life expectancy of a tenth or two-tenths of a year mean that on a population level, a lot more people are dying prematurely than they really should be,” said Robert Anderson, chief of mortality statistics at the NCHS. Read full story (paywalled) Source: The New York Times (31 August 2022)
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