Experts are calling on the government to continue focusing on ‘levelling-up’ health, arguing that reducing the health gap is too important an agenda to abandon.
Writing in Public Health in Practice and based on a review of all the previous literature, the team, involving Newcastle University scientists, sets out a five-point framework to help level-up health and help tackle health inequalities, which they say have been exacerbated by the Covid-19 pandemic.
The UK government committed to a programme of ‘levelling-up’ to help left-behind areas and regions to recover and prosper to the same extent as other parts of the country, including a £4.8 billion Levelling Up Fund.
With the departure of Boris Johnson as Prime Minister, the researchers urge the new government to reaffirm their commitment to levelling up.
With the fallout from the pandemic and rise in the cost of living, the impact on health is expected to be substantial due to the long-term economic repercussions of the pandemic, including food and housing insecurity, debt, and poverty.
Professor Clare Bambra, from Newcastle University’s Faculty of Medical Sciences, said: “Health inequalities have arisen over decades, if not centuries, but underlying them is often the same root cause: an unequal distribution of the wider determinants of health, such as access to resources, opportunities, wealth, education, and power.
“There is no silver bullet that will solve this problem. If we are serious about tacking this problem, then we’ll need a holistic approach, with long-term, collaborative and cross-government strategies that look beyond just one election cycle.”
Dr John Ford, from the University of Cambridge, colleagues and a Newcastle team, carried out a review of the research literature to develop a practical, evidence-based framework to level up health that can be implemented across sectors, including governments or non-profits, and across a diversity of scales, from local to national, and a diversity of contexts.
Dr Ford said: “It feels like we’re at a pivotal point as the government moves its focus away from levelling-up and towards economic growth. It’s crucial that they prioritise closing the health gap – which has only got worse during the pandemic – as an urgent priority.
“This will not be straightforward to achieve and will require cross government – and cross-party – support and long-term planning. That’s why we’re setting out five evidence-based principles that will help ensure the success of any health levelling-up programmes.”
