Poverty and Deprivation

People living in poverty are more likely to experience poor health through lack of access to the resources needed to meet their basic needs.

Living in poverty can result in poor health and wellbeing through lack of access to nutritious food, adequate health care, and safe housing. This problem can also work in reverse, with those suffering from poor health more at risk of living in poverty due to lack of economic opportunities. This insecurity can also cause stress and impact mental health.

Health outcomes can be impacted by where a person lives, with research from Health Equity North showing a worrying pattern of lower life expectancy, higher infant mortality rates and worse health and wellbeing in the north of England than elsewhere in the country. Additionally, the recent IPPR report, Healthy Places, Prosperous Lives, has shown that the UK now has among the largest health inequalities of any advanced economy, with one in every four people in England and Wales who are economically inactive living in the unhealthiest 50 local authorities.

These inequalities were also prevalent through the COVID-19 pandemic, as the impact of the disease was not felt equally across the UK, with the North of England hit harder than other regions. A report by academics from The University of Manchester found that COVID-19 interacted with existing health inequalities, resulting in children living in the north:

  • facing worse health and education outcomes;
  • missing more school, with estimated negative impact on lifetime earnings;
  • reporting higher levels of loneliness and poor mental health;
  • facing higher levels of both relative and absolute poverty due to illness, long-COVID, and job loss as the economic shock sinks in.

Poverty and Deprivation theme leads:

Dr Luke Munford, Senior Lecturer in Health Economics

Dr Cristina Temenos, Reader in Human Geography

Case studies