International health inequalities data

Health inequalities

A key challenge facing the North East is the health inequalities in the region and the impact this has on economic inactivity. As part of our research into international comparators regions and inclusive growth therefore, we also benchmarked the North East against the long list of regions with similar economic performance across three health indicators.

These indicators were:

• Age adjusted mortality rate
• Life expectancy at birth
• Gender difference in life expectancy at birth

You can see the North East's performance across these indicators below, where despite some improvements over our study period the North East has higher adjusted mortality and lower life expectancy than the comparator long list. The gender gap is smaller in the North East which is a positive, although this partially reflects the overall lower life expectancy.
 

Health policy and case studies

Within our case studies our two European examples showed the clearest focus on health inequalities. During the 2008 to 2018 period there has been a growing interest in ‘Health In All (HIA) Policies’ in Europe, with the European Commission saying in 2006 that poor health means “employers lose worker productivity and citizens are deprived of potential length and quality of life”. 

Saxony-Anhalt embeds HIA in law by requiring public health services to contribute to all planning processes. Meanwhile health reforms in the Basque Country health “are credited with development of one of the most successful integrated care strategies in Europe”^[1]. A key driver of this success is the focus of the Health Policy in the Basque Country 2013–2020 (HPBC) on health, social determinants, and implementation. This places tackling health inequalities at its core, with accompanying quantitative outcome targets. 

Poor health is known to be a barrier to both greater productivity and inclusivity, and this international benchmarking suggests that the North East's underperformance to similar regions internationally since 2008 may be linked to its poor health outcomes.

Further insight

You can read more about our international case studies by following the link below, or read about how health inequalities are a challenge to the North East's inclusive productivity performance in our North East spotlight.