Transcript
[MUSIC PLAYING]
SPEAKER 1
We've known for years about the long standing differences in health for children and adults in wealthier areas in this country compared to children in poorer areas. Way back in 1976, we had the court report fit for the future which looked at the physical health of children in inner city areas. That report told us that children in poorer areas, in inner city areas, were physically smaller and had higher rates of illness and death, including deaths than children in other areas. And not only did they have higher rates of illness and death, but they also had poorer access to health facilities.
The court report described childhood illness and disadvantage as casting long shadows forward because not only did they affect children's health, but it also affected them into their adult health as well. Then in 1980, the report Inequalities in Health was published for a major report on the health and well being across the country. That report told us that not only were those inequalities in health between poorer and wealthier areas still there, but actually they were getting worse.
There's a statistic from that report that's really stark and brings to life what that meant for babies and children at that time. It told us that babies born to unskilled fathers had death rates four to five times higher than for babies of professional fathers. And the causes were still the same for those inequalities in health. They were caused by poor living conditions, particularly overcrowding, they were caused by poor working conditions. And they were caused by poor nutrition.
Around that time in 1982, I worked for Central Birmingham Community Health Council for a year as part of my undergraduate degree. I was asked to research and health, environment, and population profiles of the new Central Birmingham Health District so that we could give a report to that health authority to let them know the needs of the people in their area.
Central Birmingham Health District at that time had areas of distinct wealthier areas, wealthier parts, including out to the West, and to the South of the city further out from the centre. Whereas the poorer areas tended to be concentrated in the centre and up to the North. If we look at a couple of figures from the report from that time, we can see those wealthier and poorer areas reflected in the data. So we can see that exclusive use of sanitation facilities, exclusive use of bath and shower, inside toilet and hot water were concentrated in the outer wealthier areas. Whereas the levels of overcrowding were concentrated in the poorer areas in the centre and North.
I was born in inner-city Birmingham in the Ladywood area at the Dudley Road Children's Hospital many, many years ago. And so this work had real resonance for me. If we look at some of the indicators of Child Health from that report all that time ago, it gives us a real sense of how those inequalities played out in that central Birmingham Health District at that time.
Here we can see that in the poorer areas, babies were more likely to be born at low birth weight, which has a real influence on their health risks. And similarly for perinatal mortality we can see those differences. And that means deaths from birth through to age six days.
The rates of pediatric deaths and discharges for children from age 2 to 13 years also shows us that those were higher at that time in the poorest areas, particularly Sparkhill, and much lower out to the West and to the South in Holborn, Hall Green, and Fox Hollies.