Understanding of the Health Inequality in UK

Contemporary Debates 1
Contemporary Debates

Contemporary Debates 2
Table of Contents
Essay.................................................................................................................................3
References.........................................................................................................................8

Contemporary Debates 3
Essay
Understanding of the health inequality in UK
Inequality in health refers to a condition where the health of one group of people in the
country is much worse than the other group. In UK, there are significant health
inequalities which are prevailing across the country. The health differences in UK are
caused due to economic and social inequalities in the environment under which
individuals are born, work, live, and age. The social gradient for inequality in health is
the differences between the social positions of the individuals. The social position refers
to different aspects which include education, unemployment, low income, and gender.
Significant concern is expressed by doctors in UK in context of social equality and
poverty and their negative effects on the physical and mental health as well as life
expectancy of the individuals in UK (Bma, 2016). The differences in social position of
the individuals become the major reasons due to which inequalities are created in the
health. Education plays a significant role in creating health inequalities. The section of
people which posses higher level of education are observed to have better health
outcomes in comparison to those with low level of education. This is because an
educated person has more literacy towards health which means that an education
individual will have the appropriate understanding, knowledge, confidence, and skills to
evaluate, access, and use the information related to health and social care and
services. Education is connected with health literacy and health literacy is connected
with health outcomes and the use of services. Limited education directly leads to the
behavior of unhealthy lifestyle such as lack of physical activity, smoking, and poor diet
intake. It is also observed that people who have limited education uses more
emergency services and are unable to manage positive healthy living in the long term
which also leads to incurring of high costs of healthcare. In UK, 42% of adults who are
of working-age are not able to understand the use of information related to everyday
health. Also, 61% of this population is not able to comprehend the information when
there is a requirement of numerical skills (Public health England, 2015).
Occupation and income are the social gradients which are directly related to poverty.
Unemployment and low income leads to poverty. People repeatedly move between