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From the evidence it is clear that something about 'health' has deteriorated since 2010. Two additional factors occur to me, after attending this year's Public Health England conference. Millions of British adults do not feel Valued (especially those in 'bad work', living in run-down neighbourhoods) and millions feel a lack of Purpose in their lives (a deadly 'anomie'). These factors relate to some of the objective, economic or geographical measures described, but a sense of Value and Purpose are internalised. In Nazi Germany, the leaders dismissed fellow citizens with disabilities or chronic illness as having 'lives not worth living': many were actively murdered and even more were starved to death when their rations disappeared. Public Health recently published our overview of the public health consequences of social isolation and loneliness (http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0033350617302731). Collectively, what can we do to change self-beliefs held by so many people in Britain, that their own lives are not worth living?
In his haste, urgent solution seeker Michael Marmot overlooks the efforts of Case and Deaton in the USA, who foresee years of labour in understanding flatlining life expectancy. One striking feature of their evidence is strong birth cohort effects in "deaths of despair"- suicide, alcohol and drug-related deaths. These have a large effect on life expectancy because their victims are relatively young. Given the likely influence of adverse life events and childhood stress on these outcomes, which are rising again on this side of the pond, perhaps we should be asking what happened to children in the sixties and seventies as much as what have the Tories done since 2010 - if we really wish to understand the problem, that is.
Re: The UK’s current health problems should be treated with urgency
From the evidence it is clear that something about 'health' has deteriorated since 2010. Two additional factors occur to me, after attending this year's Public Health England conference. Millions of British adults do not feel Valued (especially those in 'bad work', living in run-down neighbourhoods) and millions feel a lack of Purpose in their lives (a deadly 'anomie'). These factors relate to some of the objective, economic or geographical measures described, but a sense of Value and Purpose are internalised. In Nazi Germany, the leaders dismissed fellow citizens with disabilities or chronic illness as having 'lives not worth living': many were actively murdered and even more were starved to death when their rations disappeared. Public Health recently published our overview of the public health consequences of social isolation and loneliness (http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0033350617302731). Collectively, what can we do to change self-beliefs held by so many people in Britain, that their own lives are not worth living?
Competing interests: No competing interests