{"id":1510,"date":"2020-05-14T11:51:30","date_gmt":"2020-05-14T10:51:30","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/iprblog\/?p=1510"},"modified":"2020-05-14T11:51:30","modified_gmt":"2020-05-14T10:51:30","slug":"public-health-inequalities-and-covid-19-looking-beyond-the-lockdown","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/iprblog\/2020\/05\/14\/public-health-inequalities-and-covid-19-looking-beyond-the-lockdown\/","title":{"rendered":"Public health, inequalities, and COVID-19: Looking beyond the lockdown"},"content":{"rendered":"

Adam Briggs<\/a> is an\u00a0Associate Clinical Professor and Honorary Consultant in Public Health at the University of Warwick.\u00a0<\/em>Harry Rutter<\/a> is a Professor of Global Public Health at the University of Bath.<\/em><\/p>\n

As the UK moves beyond the first-wave peak, the national conversation surrounding COVID-19 has shifted to how to safely lift the lockdown. When should restrictions be relaxed? Who can go back to school or work first? Which limits should stay in place? And how can this be done in a way that\u2019s safe, transparent, data-led, and adaptable as new evidence emerges?<\/p>\n

Straight-forward population-level public health policies have an important part in supporting this transition, reducing the impact of COVID-19 on inequalities, and ensuring that the health and care system can provide care to people as and when they need it.<\/p>\n

We weren\u2019t alone<\/a>\u00a0in\u00a0writing about this<\/a>\u00a0topic earlier in the pandemic, but progress has been disappointing. We argued for lower speed limits in light of reports\u00a0of terrifying driving<\/a>. We suggested raising the legal age for buying tobacco and providing free nicotine replacement. We proposed limiting the amount of alcohol that can be bought per transaction alongside accelerating the introduction of minimum unit pricing in England.<\/p>\n

Such policies weren\u2019t chosen at random. As we\u00a0wrote at the time<\/a>, they were selected based on evidence that they\u00a0\u201ccould free up NHS capacity and save lives in the short term, as well as improve population health and wellbeing in the medium to long term.\u201d\u00a0<\/i>It feels as though much of the world has moved on with these discussions, but the UK has largely lagged behind.<\/p>\n

Germany, France, and Italy<\/a>\u00a0have all made significant moves to ensure people can use active travel to get to work safely by initiatives ranging from\u00a0temporary cycle lanes<\/a>\u00a0to\u00a0free bike repairs<\/a>. And on the 9th\u00a0May the government somewhat belatedly followed suit when Transport Secretary Grant Shapps announced the first \u00a3250 million of a\u00a0\u00a32 billion investment in cycling and walking infrastructure<\/a>\u00a0in England. The announcement included the welcome publication of\u00a0new local authority statutory guidance<\/a>\u00a0on reallocating road space, compelling local government to repurpose roads away from cars and towards bikes and pedestrians, and recommending lower speed limits in built up areas. Such investment and guidance are crucial to ensuring that people don\u2019t crowd public transport or resort to private vehicles when returning to work. But when you consider that\u00a0Greater Manchester\u2019s 1,800 mile-long cycling and walking network<\/a>\u00a0alone is estimated at \u00a31.5bn, the promised \u00a32bn is unlikely to fund the necessary long-term shift towards active travel.<\/p>\n

Recent reports suggest that as\u00a0many as 300,000 smokers<\/a>\u00a0may have quit during the lockdown, with four times as many people actively trying to follow suit. COVID-19 has helped to alter the\u00a0decisional balance\u00a0<\/i>in Prochaska and di Clemente\u2019s famous\u00a0transtheoretical model of behaviour change\u2014<\/a>shifting people from contemplation to preparation, and from preparation to action with potentially important implications for inequalities. Smoking rates among\u00a0unemployed adults are 29% compared with just 15% among those with jobs<\/a>, and people in routine or manual work are over twice as likely to smoke as managers or professionals. One wonders how many additional smokers would have stopped if more support had been made available.<\/p>\n

Drinking habits have also changed.\u00a0A survey from the charity, Alcohol Change UK<\/a>, suggests that up to a third of UK adults have reduced how much they drink compared to a fifth that have increased consumption. Whilst welcome, closer reading of the data tell us that those who drink most often are the least likely to have cut back\u2014those dependent drinkers who are most likely to respond to policies such as\u00a0minimum unit pricing<\/a>. And alcohol doesn\u2019t just harm the physical and mental health of the individual, it impacts the entire home including the\u00a0risk and severity of domestic abuse<\/a>\u00a0against women and children.<\/p>\n

In addition to the inequalities in COVID-19 outcomes\u00a0by ethnicity<\/a>, there is growing evidence that COVID-19 is having a much greater impact on those least able to cope\u2014people who are more deprived and have lower incomes.\u00a0Mortality data<\/a>\u00a0show that most deprived populations have over double the COVID-19 death rate of the least deprived. Economic data suggest that\u00a0those working in the most insecure and lowest paid jobs<\/a>\u00a0are least likely to have been able to work from home, are more affected by loss of employment, and are more vulnerable to housing insecurity. The COVID-inspired growth of informal community networks is weighted towards the\u00a0most socio-economically advantaged parts of the country<\/a>. And the forthcoming global economic recession may mean further\u00a0cuts to national and local government services<\/a>\u00a0that protect the most vulnerable in our society.<\/p>\n

The repercussions of COVID-19 will be felt for years to come. It can\u2019t be used as an excuse for worsening population health and widening inequalities, but instead needs to be an opportunity for a healthier and more equal society. Public health policies taken now can reduce short-term NHS demand, improve population health, and limit the impact on inequalities. And beyond these immediate measures, we need\u00a0a long-term government inequalities strategy<\/a>\u00a0to support those most acutely affected by COVID-19 both now and in the future.<\/p>\n

This blog was originally posted via the bmj opinion<\/a> on 12 May 2020.<\/em><\/p>\n

Are you a decision-maker in government, industry or the third sector responding to the coronavirus crisis?\u00a0Apply now<\/a>\u00a0to our virtual Policy Fellowship Programme for access to University of Bath research and expertise.\u00a0Learn more<\/a>.\u00a0<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

All articles posted on this blog give the views of the author(s), and not the position of the IPR, nor of the University of Bath.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Adam Briggs is an\u00a0Associate Clinical Professor and Honorary Consultant in Public Health at the University of Warwick.\u00a0Harry Rutter is a Professor of Global Public Health at the University of Bath. As the UK moves beyond the first-wave peak, the national...<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1186,"featured_media":1511,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[137,109,111,116,118,124],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1510","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-covid-19","category-data-politics-and-policy","category-drug-and-alcohol-policy","category-evidence-and-policymaking","category-health","category-public-services"],"acf":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/iprblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/115\/2020\/05\/Health.png","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/iprblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1510","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/iprblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/iprblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/iprblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1186"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/iprblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1510"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/iprblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1510\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/iprblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1511"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/iprblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1510"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/iprblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1510"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/iprblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1510"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}