The coronavirus pandemic has exposed the stark inequalities that exist in society. Black and Asian ethnic groups, people from deprived areas and the elderly have been disproportionately affected by the virus, with a higher risk of mortality.
As COVID-19 highlights health inequalities as a major public health issue, could this be a watershed moment?
At the start of this year, the Institute for Health Equity published The Marmot review 10 years on.1 It examined trends in health inequalities in England over the last decade and found that regional and socioeconomic differences in health are large and growing. The report showed that life expectancy improvements were stalling and there was a decline in the number of years some people could expect to live a healthy life.
Since the publication of the review, in February, the landscape of the UK has changed irrevocably. Many thousands of families have lost loved ones and many millions of families face uncertainty and hardship, with a toll on their long-term health and wellbeing. The coronavirus pandemic has brought to the fore the harsh realities of health inequalities and there has been a major public focus on the impacts of deprivation, ethnicity and age on outcomes and mortality
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