The Health inequalities annual report 2024 should be ‘essential reading across all parts of public life in Northern
Ireland’, health minister Mike Nesbitt stated in June.
The document details continuing disparities between the most and least deprived areas of Northern Ireland.
Alcohol and drug related indicators continued to show some of the largest health inequalities.
While the inequality gaps between the most and least deprived areas for both the teenage birth rate and the
proportion of mothers smoking also remained ‘very large’ – rates in the most deprived areas were over five times that in the least deprived in 2022. And in 2022/23, the percentage of obese primary one pupils in the most
deprived areas was more than double than in the least deprived areas.
The Department of Health stated that when applying modelling from England to Northern Ireland, health inequalities can be estimated to cost Northern Ireland up to £1.7bn every year – this is through factors such as health service costs, lost productivity, and welfare costs.
The health minister said health inequalities are ‘a key issue for all parts of government’ since they ‘are a symptom and a reflection of wider societal inequalities’. He also said that the report’s ‘findings should be a challenge to us all’
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