Chapter 2
“Health inequalities are unfair and avoidable differences in health across the population (…) These conditions influence our opportunities for good health, and how we think, feel and act, and this shapes our mental health, physical health and wellbeing”- NHS England56.
In this chapter, there will be an analysis of the perpetuated and wholly avoidable health inequalities that exacerbate the disproportionate obstacles disabled people face. In addition, there will be an investigation into the effects that cost-cutting policy and legislation have on the general wellbeing of disabled people throughout the UK. Inequalities in health are regularly under review, with governments seemingly stuck in a Groundhog Day scenario, repeatedly commissioning reports and not actioning the findings or recommendations. The evidence is damning, and the lack of action surrounding the publication of these reports is deafening.
Health inequalities that affect everyone.
There are a number of universally recognised factors that affect public health, they are for example: unemployment, low income and living in a deprived area. These will all have an effect on the health of the entire population. Deprivation is defined by the Cambridge dictionary as: ‘A situation in which you do not have things or conditions that are usually considered necessary for a pleasant life57’. Subsections of deprivation are categorised by the
56
NHS, Definitions for Health Inequalities, [n.d.] <https://www.england.nhs.uk/ltphimenu/definitions-forhealth-inequalities/> [Accessed 27 November 2020] (para. 2 of 8). 57 Cambridge dictionary, deprivation, [n.d.] <https://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/english/deprivation> [Accessed 21 January 2021]
