Unlock Editor’s Digest Lock for Free
FT editor Roula Khalaf will select your favorite stories in this weekly newsletter.
According to the first study of this type by the UK Health Security Agency, the likelihood of hospitalization for infectious diseases has increased dramatically among people of certain ethnic groups, from those living in certain geographical areas and deprivation.
The agency said health protection inequality “has a higher human cost” and “has broader social impacts, including health services and economic productivity.”
Among other notable statistics, the report found that emergency hospital admissions for tuberculosis was 27 times higher than Indians and 15 times higher than Black Africans in the group described as “other in Asia” compared to White Brits.
People living in the UK’s most disadvantaged 20% are almost twice as likely to be hospitalized than those who are most disadvantaged due to infection. People living in the northwest are 30% more likely to be hospitalized due to infection compared to the English average.
A report released Friday found that people living in areas with high deprivation are usually exposed to “higher levels of air pollution than untapped, ethnically diverse areas” and “inhibiting thermally inefficient housing, fuel poverty, lack of air conditioning and distance from green cooling environments.”
Dr. Leonora Weil, UKHSA’s Associate Director of Health Equity and Inclusion, told the symposium of the research institute, Health Foundation, that health inequality is “avoidable, sustainable, popular and preventable.”
By making the data “visible” the aim was that the UKHSA, working across national and local governments, the NHS and voluntary sectors, “can make those changes to ensure that communities have longer and better health.”
The UKHSA estimated that “inequal hospitalizations for emergency infections will cost between £970 million and £1.5 billion from 2022-23,” as well as the costs for the community’s social, physical and mental health. Infectious diseases are the main reason for over 20% of hospital bed use in the UK, and recently proposed at an annual cost of nearly £6 billion in 2023-24.
The report shows that emergency hospital admission rates in seized communities are generally twice as high as common respiratory illnesses compared to general poor communities, up to seven times higher in tuberculosis and six times higher in measles.
Emphasizing one way data use makes a difference, Weil cited important measles outbreaks in 2023, particularly in London and Birmingham.
“We’ve got real-time data on MMR vaccinations from GP records,” and we’ve got to see “what we have with regard to the ethnicity and deprivation situation where people live,” she added.
Recommended
It also “we got to see the very targeted campaigns we did and see which parts of the campaign influenced it.” Ethnic data allowed agents to work with health protection teams to target approaches and “see who wasn’t vaccinated and do their job the most effectively,” she said.
The UKHSA report concluded that more analyses are needed “to understand multiple contributors to the interaction between these inequalities and demographic characteristics.” He warned that causes and solutions were often “systematic, structural and complex.”
The Ministry of Health and Social Affairs stated: “This shocking report shows the horrific healthcare inequality that this government has inherited. Our plan for change is to reform the NHS and be there for everyone, regardless of who they are or where they live.”
It added that the government has appointed an extra 3 million people since July to cut wait lists, and that “people have been living a healthier life, regardless of background, taking radical action to change the focus of care from illness to prevention.”
