Women and children would be better off living in many other European countries, including Spain and Italy, than in the UK, according to a World Health Organisation (WHO) report.
Death rates among under-fives in the UK are higher than in the Czech Republic, Slovenia and Finland and most countries to the west of Europe, while women face lower life expectancy, it said.
The review's chairman, Professor Sir Michael Marmot, also said the current high level of young people not in employment, education or training (Neets) - particularly the long-term unemployed - is a "public health time bomb waiting to explode".
He said: "We are failing too many of our children, women and young people on a grand scale. Health inequalities, arising from social and economic inequalities, are socially unjust, unnecessary and avoidable."
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