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Social murder? : austerity and life expectancy in the UK / David Walsh and Gerry McCartney.

De Gruyter Bristol UP/Policy Press Complete eBook-Package 2024 Available online

De Gruyter Bristol UP/Policy Press Complete eBook-Package 2024
Format:
Book
Author/Creator:
Walsh, David, 1949- author.
McCartney, Gerry, author.
Language:
English
Subjects (All):
Life expectancy.
Physical Description:
1 online resource (239 pages)
Edition:
First edition.
Place of Publication:
Bristol, England : Bristol University Press, [2025]
Summary:
Combining robust evidence with real-life stories, this book reveals the shocking impact of austerity policies on life expectancy and offers an optimistic vision of what can be done to restore life expectancy and reduce health inequality.
Contents:
Front Cover
Social Murder?: Austerity and Life Expectancy in the UK
Copyright information
Discliamer
Dedication
Epigraph
Contents
List of figures and tables
About the authors
Acknowledgements
Authors' note
Michael
1 Introduction
Rachel
2 What happened in the UK?
What happened - and what should have happened
When did the trends change?
Who was most affected?
Income
Age, sex and cause of death
Beyond measures of mortality and life expectancy
The impact of COVID-19 on mortality rates
What does all this mean for health inequalities in the UK?
Frances
3 Why have mortality rates and life expectancy changed in the UK?
What is austerity?
The components of austerity in the UK: what, where and how much?
How does austerity impact on health?
The evidence (1): austerity and poverty
Increased poverty in the UK
Poverty and health
The evidence (2): austerity and other health 'determinants'
The evidence (3): austerity, illness and death
Poor mental health
Other diseases and mortality/life expectancy
The evidence (4): austerity and child health
The evidence (5): 'qualitative' studies of the impact of austerity on health
Is it only about austerity?
Cardiovascular disease (CVD)
What was suggested?
Is there anything in it?
Drug-related deaths
Deaths from dementia and Alzheimer's disease
Deaths from influenza ('flu)
Obesity
Demographic and methodological issues
The 'tragic social consequences' of austerity
Paul
4 What happened to life expectancy in other countries, and why?.
Trends in life expectancy and mortality across countries and the role of austerity
The challenge of assessing and measuring austerity
The impacts of austerity across countries
Germany, Australia and the Netherlands
Germany
Australia
The Netherlands
The case of the US
The shift to neoliberalism in the 1980s
From bad to worse: life expectancy trends after 2010
Austerity in the US
Iceland, Greece, Spain and the Republic of Ireland
Iceland
Greece
Republic of Ireland
Spain
Japan and South Korea
Conclusion
Moira
5 How did governments and agencies respond to the life expectancy crisis?
The challenge of identifying a change in life expectancy trends
A timeline of events
The emergence of influenza as the key explanation for the 'mortality spike'
The response of public health agencies
England
Scotland
Wales and Northern Ireland
World Health Organisation (WHO)
Think-tanks and academics
What is behind the different interpretations of the changed life expectancy trends?
Government and political responses
Avoiding the question
Demonisation of people on social security benefits and blaming individuals for the trends
Arguments that the evidence of the causes of the stalling is uncertain
Spurious arguments
Ellen
6 What else is relevant for understanding the changed life expectancy trends?
Obesity and the 'obesogenic environment'
Increasing obesity
The causes of increasing obesity
How much of the stalled life expectancy trends does obesity explain?
What impact will obesity have in the future?
COVID-19
The direct impacts of COVID-19 infection
Differential COVID-19 exposure
Differential vulnerability to COVID-19
The effects of disruption to healthcare services
The effects of lockdown measures.
The long reach of the COVID-19 pandemic
Inflation
Background to increasing prices
How unequally has inflation been felt?
What has the impact of inflation on mortality been?
David
7 What do we need to do?
Narrowing inequalities
Narrowing inequalities - and undoing austerity
The cost of change
What now?
Appendix: Summary of the causal evidence that austerity has led to the mortality trend changes
Notes and references
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Appendix
Index.
Notes:
Includes bibliographical references and index.
Description based on publisher supplied metadata and other sources.
Description based on print version record.
ISBN:
9781447373117
1447373111
9781447373094
144737309X
9781447373100
1447373103
OCLC:
1479377935

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