The UK’s cities present “a range of health opportunities and challenges”, with often high levels of entrenched deprivation, health inequalities, and some of the country’s unhealthiest environments, the chief medical officer for England, Professor Sir Chis Whitty, has said.
Whitty, in his annual report to end the year, has focused on health in cities, and has highlighted the challenges of low healthy food choices and higher numbers of fast food outlets, air pollution and low quality housing.
“These factors continue to drive health inequalities, with the least deprived living in good health for much longer than the most deprived,” he has said.
Health inequalities
One million died prematurely in a decade because of health inequalities
Rates of vaccination and screening uptake remain lower and sexually transmitted disease rates higher in cities. “The healthcare system needs to be flexible to better support individuals and drive up vaccination and screening rates,” the report has argued.
The report has called for more action on obesity and air pollution, the food environment and healthcare service planning and delivery.
“Maintaining good health for the longest possible time can be harder in cities and should be seen as a major priority,” it recommended.
“Action to remove barriers and maintain good health for older people in cities can include having age-friendly accommodation and ensuring practical access to places maintaining physical activity and social engagement for those with predictable mobility and sensory impairment of older age,” it added.
“Cities provide great opportunities for a healthier life but many, especially in areas of deprivation, have poor access to healthy food choices, exercise and are exposed to air pollution,” Whitty said.
Separately, latest figures from the Office for National Statistics have suggested that people in England and Wales are expected to live fewer years in good health – healthy life expectancy – than they did in 2017-2019, with the north east of England the region with the lowest healthy life expectancy for both men and women.
In response, Anna Gazzillo, senior analytical manager at the think-tank The Health Foundation, said: “This decline, at least in part, reflects the impact of the pandemic on life expectancy and follows a decade during which improvements in healthy life expectancy have stagnated.
“The ongoing inequalities between regions highlight the challenge for the new government to fulfil its promise of halving the gap in healthy life expectancy between the wealthiest and poorest regions in England,” she added.
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