The North East has the highest concentration of left behind areas, where people were 46% more likely to die from Covid
By Graeme Whitfield
Business and Agenda Editor
13 JAN 2022
13 JAN 2022
Fifth Street in Horden, County Durham (Image: Newcastle Chronicle)
People in “left behind” communities in regions like the North East work longer hours and live shorter lives, with more years suffering poor health, a new report has found.
The report - drawn up partly by academics at Newcastle University - found that people living in those areas were 46% more likely to die from Covid-19 than people living in other parts of the country, with ill health costing the country nearly £30bn a year in lost productivity.
The findings have been revealed in a joint report released by the All-Parliamentary Party Group for left behind neighbourhoods and Northern Health Science Alliance, which looks at the 225 areas of England which are ranked in the most deprived areas of the country and the areas with the worst public services.
It finds that in those areas - which are mostly found in the North and the Midlands - life expectancy for men was 3.7 years lower than average and three years lower for women. People in those neighbourhoods can also expect 7.5 fewer years in good health than their counterparts in the rest of England.
All but two of those areas have higher levels of bad or very bad health than the national average, while there is a higher prevalance of high blood pressure, obesity and chronic lung conditions. People living in left behind communities claim almost double the amount of incapacity benefits due to mental health related conditions as in England as a whole.
All-Party group co-chair Paul Howell, Tory MP for Sedgefield, said: “Health is at the forefront of all our minds right now.
“The findings from this report are clear, people living in ‘left behind’ neighbourhoods are overall worse off when it comes to health and something needs to change.”
Co-author Professor Clare Bambra, a public health expert at Newcastle University, said: “Levelling up needs to urgently focus on health inequalities by addressing the unequal conditions in which we live, work and age.
“For too long, a lack of investment in key services has meant that more deprived, ‘left behind’ neighbourhoods – particularly in the North – have suffered disproportionately.
“The Covid-19 pandemic has worsened these inequalities and it will cast a long shadow across our future heath and economic prosperity as a country unless we act now. That’s why levelling up health needs to be central to the Government’s overall approach to levelling up the country.”
County Durham has the highest number of ‘left behind’ neighbourhoods in England at 16, while nine of England’s 20 most vulnerable areas to the Covid pandemic are in the North East.
In the County Durham village of Horden, 29.9% of working age people live with a limiting long-term illness, more than twice the national average.
The report’s authors make a series of recommendations to level up the health inequalities in left behind neighbourhoods, including an increase in NHS funding in more deprived local areas.
Despite being England’s smallest region, the North East has the country’s most ‘left behind’ areas at 54, including Byker and Walker, in Newcastle, the Choppington and Kitty Brewster areas of Northumberland, and Hendon in Sunderland.
People in “left behind” communities in regions like the North East work longer hours and live shorter lives, with more years suffering poor health, a new report has found.
The report - drawn up partly by academics at Newcastle University - found that people living in those areas were 46% more likely to die from Covid-19 than people living in other parts of the country, with ill health costing the country nearly £30bn a year in lost productivity.
The findings have been revealed in a joint report released by the All-Parliamentary Party Group for left behind neighbourhoods and Northern Health Science Alliance, which looks at the 225 areas of England which are ranked in the most deprived areas of the country and the areas with the worst public services.
It finds that in those areas - which are mostly found in the North and the Midlands - life expectancy for men was 3.7 years lower than average and three years lower for women. People in those neighbourhoods can also expect 7.5 fewer years in good health than their counterparts in the rest of England.
All but two of those areas have higher levels of bad or very bad health than the national average, while there is a higher prevalance of high blood pressure, obesity and chronic lung conditions. People living in left behind communities claim almost double the amount of incapacity benefits due to mental health related conditions as in England as a whole.
All-Party group co-chair Paul Howell, Tory MP for Sedgefield, said: “Health is at the forefront of all our minds right now.
“The findings from this report are clear, people living in ‘left behind’ neighbourhoods are overall worse off when it comes to health and something needs to change.”
Co-author Professor Clare Bambra, a public health expert at Newcastle University, said: “Levelling up needs to urgently focus on health inequalities by addressing the unequal conditions in which we live, work and age.
“For too long, a lack of investment in key services has meant that more deprived, ‘left behind’ neighbourhoods – particularly in the North – have suffered disproportionately.
“The Covid-19 pandemic has worsened these inequalities and it will cast a long shadow across our future heath and economic prosperity as a country unless we act now. That’s why levelling up health needs to be central to the Government’s overall approach to levelling up the country.”
County Durham has the highest number of ‘left behind’ neighbourhoods in England at 16, while nine of England’s 20 most vulnerable areas to the Covid pandemic are in the North East.
In the County Durham village of Horden, 29.9% of working age people live with a limiting long-term illness, more than twice the national average.
The report’s authors make a series of recommendations to level up the health inequalities in left behind neighbourhoods, including an increase in NHS funding in more deprived local areas.
Despite being England’s smallest region, the North East has the country’s most ‘left behind’ areas at 54, including Byker and Walker, in Newcastle, the Choppington and Kitty Brewster areas of Northumberland, and Hendon in Sunderland.
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