Book contents
Section 2 - Inequalities
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 20 January 2022
Summary
Health policy is a devolved responsibility, and in 2001 the Scottish Executive initiated a set of reforms relating to the structure of the NHS and the way in which health services are delivered. Central to this policy, and in contrast to health policy in England and Wales, is an increased emphasis on the prevention of poor health rather than the treatment of ill health. Anne Ludbrook, Ioannis Theodossiou and Vania Gerova (Chapter Seven) examine present inequalities in health. Not only do they provide a Scottish–English comparison, their study is the first to use the superior SF-36 health status indicator in the British Household Panel Survey (BHPS). Their focus is on links between aspects of lifestyle and socioeconomic circumstances and self-reported measures of health. Despite Scotland's image as the ‘sick man of Europe’, they find that differences in average self-reported health measures between the Scots and English are not as great as in age-standardised mortality rates. While the correlates of health also seem to be broadly similar, some aspects of lifestyle and life circumstances appear to have different impacts in the two countries. Negative life circumstances, such as smoking and unemployment, produce worse health measures in Scotland than England, and positive ones produce better health outcomes. Thus, a simple comparison of ‘average health’ masks significant but offsetting differences at either end of the distribution, and these differences may provide important clues for prevention policies.
The Scottish Executive is committed to pursuing policies that create an environment more conducive to long-term and sustainable economic growth, emphasising the links between family policy, education policy and skill formation and between economic growth and the reduction of social inequality. Many studies contend that income inequality may be associated with poorer health, crime and social exclusion, and some argue that greater inequality may be associated with slower economic growth. The next three chapters document the existing differences in poverty and economic inequality between England and Scotland, thereby providing a baseline from which to assess the impact of these new policies.
Vernon Gayle, Gregor Jack and Robert Wright (Chapter Eight) employ an ‘absolute’ definition of poverty and a poverty line used in much comparative European Union (EU) poverty research.
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- Changing ScotlandEvidence from the British Household Panel Survey, pp. 95 - 98Publisher: Bristol University PressPrint publication year: 2005