EFFORTS to improve the health of the most deprived will fail unless wealth is more fairly shared in Scotland, according to a report published by the NHS.
A new study asking what it will take to eradicate health inequalities suggests drives to reduce smoking and drinking will not change life expectancy among the poorest.
NHS Health Scotland, the health promotion body which plays a key role in quit smoking drives, instead says there is an urgent need "for action to address inequalities in income, resources and power across society".
Dr Gerry McCartney, of NHS Health Scotland, said illness which had once taken a greater toll on the deprived such as cholera and tuberculosis had been replaced by new killers such as drugs and alcohol.
"Those with greater resources at their disposal can protect themselves from what we learn is dangerous for health," he said. "Be it accessing healthcare or vaccines or housing or less stressful jobs or stopping smoking, they can take advantage of whatever they need to be healthy."
The report, published today, showed there is little difference in death rates from non-preventable diseases like ovarian cancer across the social spectrum but large differences in death rates from more preventable conditions such as heart disease.
Andrew Fraser, a director at NHS Health Scotland, warned the "burden of health care facing the NHS, communities and families will become progressively greater" unless the root causes of poor health are tackled.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereComments are closed on this article