Census data released this week highlights again how the North East is hardest hit by the health divide across England.
The figures - based on answers to the 2021 census - highlight that while good health appears to have marginally increased both around the country and in our area, the North East as a whole continues to lag behind on yet another health indicator.
A new searchable map allows people to find out how people in each local authority area answered when asked to rate their "general health" as very good, good, fair, bad or very bad. The North East was the region in England with the highest proportion of people reporting very bad health, at 1.6% of the population.
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It is also the region with the lowest percentage of people reporting that they are in very good health - 44.7%. However both figures have seen improvements since 2011. when 1.8% said they were in very bad health and 42.7% responded they were in very good health. These figures are age-standardised.
However, these small changes still see the North East rating as the least healthy in the country, and come set against a backdrop of falling life expectancy in our area - and a range of other worrying health statistics. Late last year, senior NHS figures in our region highlighted how the believe "much of the poor health in the North East and North Cumbria is driven by a century of declining prosperity".
There are also huge disparities in health outcomes - and a report from the Health Foundation found that chronic pain, alcohol problems, COPD and cardiovascular disease were key drivers of a "north-south divide" in health which has left our region behind.
According to the Census data, Sunderland is the local authority with the highest proportion of people in bad or very bad health (7.8%). Out of 331 local authorities, it is ranked 20th from bottom on that metric. However Gateshead, Newcastle, County Durham and South Tyneside are also in the bottom 50 areas on this measure. North Tyneside and Northumberland both also fall in the bottom half.
South Tyneside Council's director of public health Tom Hall told ChronicleLive how he felt measures like this highlighted the importance of a approach to improving people's lives by working "hand in hand" with the NHS to help people spend less of their lives in ill health. He said: "Everything we do is working back to that point, of trying to help people live longer, healthier lives."
He explained this was one of the council's strategic objectives and that it was vital to invest in people's health and wellbeing - and that there were natural benefits to society from helping to lessen the burden on the NHS and social care by doing this.
The census is the once-a-decade procedure of collecting data about the population to provide detailed information about national demographics. Census 2021 director Jon Wroth-Smith said the survey was taken in the “unique circumstances” of a pandemic and during a time of lockdown, which may have influenced the results.
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