An Analysis of Health Risks to Children in UK Due to Poverty

This report investigates the significant health risks faced by children in the UK as a consequence of poverty. It begins by outlining the study's problem and rationale, emphasizing the negative impacts of poverty on families, including financial insecurity and social marginalization of children. The literature review explores various definitions of poverty, including relative income poverty and the minimum income standard, and examines the consequences of poverty on children's development, education, and future opportunities. The study's objectives include understanding the causes of poverty and its health effects on children, finding income figures, and comparing incomes across different UK boroughs. The methodology includes a systematic review of past studies and data, focusing on health risks and issues faced by children in poor families. The report also discusses sampling methods, inclusion/exclusion criteria, ethical considerations, limitations, budget, and plans for dissemination. The report highlights the importance of addressing child poverty to improve health outcomes and overall societal well-being. It references key studies and governmental policies aimed at reducing child poverty and mitigating its adverse effects on children's health and development.

HEALTH RISKS TO
CHILDREN IN UK DUE TO
POVERTY

TABLE OF CONTENTS
INTRODUCTION...........................................................................................................................3
Study Problem.............................................................................................................................3
Study Rationale...........................................................................................................................3
Literature Review........................................................................................................................4
Research Objectives....................................................................................................................7
STUDY METHOD..........................................................................................................................7
Sampling.....................................................................................................................................8
Data Collection..........................................................................................................................10
Data Analysis............................................................................................................................10
ETHICAL CONSIDERATIONS...................................................................................................11
OTHER CONSIDERATIONS.......................................................................................................12
Limitation..................................................................................................................................12
Budget.......................................................................................................................................13
Plans for Dissemination............................................................................................................13
Time Table For activities..........................................................................................................14
REFERENCES..............................................................................................................................15

INTRODUCTION
Study Problem
Poverty has a negative impact on millions of individuals in the UK, poverty
includes families not being able to afford the necessities this would include paying rent or
heating their home. Children on a daily basis have to face the uncertainty, insecurity and
their parents having to make impossible decisions about money because of the families’
financial situations it means the children face problems like marginalisation as well as
discrimination some children can even experience bullying while at school.
Study Rationale
Causes of poverty in the UK today include:
 Unemployment/unpaid jobs: Many jobs don’t provide decent pay neither a decent
security many jobs also don’t have enough jobs, low pay jobs can lead to poor
limited pension or savings.
 Low levels of education: Young peoples as well as adults without the essential
necessary qualifications and skills can and will find it difficult to find a job
especially one with a decent pay.
 Bad benefit system: The welfare benefit system for working parents who are either
in work, looking for work due to health/care problems, the benefit system is
difficult and confusing and often causes delays and errors for families which can
make it difficult for parents to increase their hours at work and for some to move
jobs.
 High costs: The pricey high costs of services such as gas, electricity, council tax,
landlines and broadband can cause poverty also depending on where one lives.
They can experience high cost due to being disabled and receiving personal care or
because they are paying the poverty premium which when the disadvantaged poor
individuals pay more for essential goods and services.
 Weak inadequate relationships: Children and young people who don’t receive
supportive parenting could be at a greater risk to poverty later in their life because
of the negative impact on their holistic development. Neglect and or abuse can

also have a significant trauma for a child can lead to poverty the impact it has on
their mental health can cause them in the future to unemployment and sometimes
homelessness and substance drug abuse.
Literature Review
The poverty line in the UK is defined as a household income below 60% of the
average. This threshold is currently around £195 a week for a lone parent with two
children using this definition there are over 3 million children living in poverty”
(20/11/2018) family action, Available at:
http://www.family-action.org.uk/section.aspx?id=691 (Accessed: 26/11/2018).
Poverty can be defined and measured in different ways the most common approach is the
relative income poverty each household income is altered for family size this is compared
to their median income, the middle-income half of people have less than 60% of their
median income are identified as poor. Half of the children in the UK live in families with
a household far below the average of £124 per week for one adult and two children.
There are four levels of poverty:
 Minimum income standard (MIS): Parents are able to afford a decent standard of
living
 75% minimum income standard (below minimum income): Parents getting by day
to day but parents under pressure and find it difficult to manage unexpected costs
as well as events.
 Destitution (not enough income): Parents fall short for a decent standard of living
so there is a high chance of parents not being able to meet needs.
 Destitution (absolute poverty): Parents can’t afford food for their families to eat
and can’t keep clean neither stay warm and dry families who have unemployed
parents the children have a poor education and develop problems at school they
are also more unlikely to in the future to attend further education, get employed
and attend training when they leave school. Poverty damages children it damages
their childhood, life chances and even damages society for children poverty feels:

There is a lack of understanding and knowledge among those who are not in poverty, any
people don’t really want to know and get caught in a negative common misconception
about poor disadvantaged individuals which aren’t true. By researching about poverty in
the UK I want change people’s attitudes and their understanding that people face caused
by poverty could make a positive impact. Education and knowledge helps give people
power and will give solutions for poverty and if every working individual in the UK is
given an awareness and an insight of people who live in poverty it could maybe help
tackle the problem. It’s important to research poverty because if everyone understands
there would be no negative misconceptions and people who live in poverty won’t need to
feel shame neither feel guilty for their situation.
The importance of research on poverty is important as its a big problHails, K.A., Zhou, Y.
and Shaw, D.S., 2019em for many children and the UK being first world country in this
day a age this shouldn’t be happening, some people feel that it’s the individuals
responsibility in poverty to get them self out of poverty obviously this is extremely unfair
assumption as disadvantaged individuals would not get themselves into something they
do not even know how to get out of, if they knew how to get themselves out of poverty
they would had already done so.
As per the view Spencer (2018), of UK has been facing child health risks
associating with its poor communities and the families who are not able to afford
healthcare facilities and systems. These health issues have been increased within poor

children specially infants. Due to poverty, poor families are unable to provide sufficient
nutritious health supplements to new born children. With severe affect to infant mortality
rates, children between the age group of 4 to 5 years are more likely to suffer from
chronic diseases. They are highly affected due to unavailability of diet food and required
supplements. Furthermore, there are number of paediatricians and healthcare
professionals who are being actively participating in health improving programs related
to child care in UK. There are visible outcomes of poverty on consumption of dietary
elements and child health.
Recent studies have found that poor children are getting continuous support from
various of supporting organizations that have aimed to basic food and vitamins dosage
timely(Four million UK children too poor to have a healthy diet, study finds, 2018). These
measures are creating awareness but providing sufficient help to reduce the level of
poverty. The Food foundations of UK are working with the aim of continuous regulatory
measures to reduce appetite of poor children but do not have sufficient to change the
existing issues of poverty within the country.
As per the view of Dickerson and Popli. (2018), there are number of instances where
children from poor class family are high affected by smoking habits of their parents. Due
to lack of awareness of various health issues related to passive smoking, parents deliver
severe health issues to their children. These issues driving the health risk factors to
children and as a part of surveys of 2012, half of 1.1 million children's parents are
smokers. Apart from smoking, usage of tobacco is also being an elementary factor which
is continuously affecting health of children living in poor families. There are number of
studies supporting the fact that parental smoking and poverty has considerable relation in
children's health issues. Since, poor families cannot afford to provide proper healthcare
aids to their children which makes it difficult to asses the existence of any healthcare
issue within their children.
According to Main and Bradshaw (2016), healthcare organizations have been
planning to reduce the health risks of children belong to poor families in UK. There are
number of governmental policies designed to decrease the level of child poverty under

the act named “Child Poverty, 2010. This act has an aim to eradicate child poverty till the
year 2020 by the inclusion of child poverty commission. There are various charity
programs for poverty have been designed to generate sustainable frameworks for affected
population of UK.
Research Objectives
The importance on this study
 To understand the causes of poverty and the health effects on children to help
eliminate poverty
 Finding figures about the income of per family
 Comparison between the income of different boroughs and cities in the UK.
 To understand why so many families are living under the poverty line or even
below the poverty line
STUDY METHOD
Sophie Wickham, Elspeth Anwar, Ben Barr, Catherine Law, David Taylor-
Robinson (2016) '', Poverty and child health in the UK: using evidence for action
In this research paper they outline key definitions to child poverty and reviews the links
between child poverty, developmental, behaviour and social outcomes for children and
their families, gives an insight of the current policies that address child poverty in the
UK. This paper states the UK had targets to eradicate child poverty the UK was the first
EU country to implement and evaluate polices made specifically at minimising child
poverty. In mostly the labour government had set targets to reduce and then finally
eradicate child poverty between 10 to 20 years the UK currently has removed the Child
Poverty Act and their targets there has now been a change in how they planned to
measure child poverty from instead focusing on income based indicators to focusing on
factors related to debt, addiction and family breakdown outcomes that are consequences
of child poverty. What I liked about this research paper is that they argue that reducing
poverty and its impact on children in the UK is morally and is legally the right thing to
do.
Study design

Study design is the outline that involve experiments or its series with an introduction to
proper utilization of cases, literature reviews and other past or future outcomes. The
design for study is systematic review as it is based upon past considerations and data
presented in articles and journals. Systematic review is one of the most credible study
design which is based upon number of past studies, literature reviews and published
papers,
Subjects and participants
Study has focused upon the health risks pertaining within children due to poverty in UK.
The primary subject will revolve around commonly occurred health risks and issues that
poor families of UK are facing in terms of health of their children. The subject will
further include major reasons of poverty within the country.
Participants of study will be the poor families and their children suffering from common
health risks and issues. They will be assessed by investigators for gathering data and
information.
INCLUSION EXCLUSION
People from below poverty line will be
included in the study
Population living above poverty line will
be excluded from the study
The study will include all related elements of
poor class people residing UK and assessments
based on their monthly incomes as well.
Families who can afford basic healthcare
facilities for their children and can provide
them nutritious food will be excluded.
Sampling
Sampling is one of most important part in research. It is used to select samples of
population which are to be included in the study. It is quite difficult to work a large
population and get a specific result (Gostin and Wiley, 2016). So, choosing a small group
of sample and applying different techniques of sampling can help in getting results easily
and accurately. Small size of sample data helps in reaching to the conclusion in a very

shout duration of time. Sampling is normally done on primary data collected and is done
in following stages.
 First of a target population is defined to represent a specific segment from a large
population (Rees and Bradshaw, 2018). As in this research it will be quite difficult
to address all the children's health risk due to poverty. So, in order to get accurate
result a small section of children will be chosen.
 After defining a target population a sample frame will be chosen i.e. number of
people within target population, who are going to contribute in the research.
 Then after choosing a sample frame sample size will be determined i.e. number of
people who will participate in primary data collection process.
 After determining sample size a specific method will be chosen for the research
and will apply the chosen sample method in practise.
Sampling is of two types i.e. probability sampling and non-probability sampling.
 In probability sampling each and every member of the main population has a
chance of participating in the study (Hails, Zhou and Shaw, 2019). It is further of
four types, they are: Simple random method, Systematic random method,
Stratified random method and lastly a cluster random method.
 In non-probability sampling members from the population are chosen in a non-
random manner, therefore in these sampling there are less chance for all the
members of population to participate in a study. It is further of four types they are
Quota, purposive, volunteer, haphazard.
In this research probabilistic sampling method will be chosen where eradicate children
between 10 to 20 years will be chosen as a sample data.
Data Collection
Data collection is important in any kind of research. There are various kinds of
data collection methods which completely depend upon the type of research it is i.e.
whether it is qualitative research or quantitative research. This research will be done in
qualitative research (Heberle and Carter, 2015). For this qualitative research Survey
method will be chosen. It is a primary data collection method which is used to record

peoples thoughts, their response and their level of satisfaction towards a topic. There are
various types of survey methods such as mail survey, telephone survey, personal
interview etc. which can be conducted in different forms such as: in the form of a
questionnaire which can be distributed to people to collect their response in short
duration of time (Guinosso, Johnson and Riley, 2016). In form of interviews in order to
record response of the peoples by exploring the issue or the topic with greater focus and
lastly by conducting a documentation review. For this survey questionnaire method will
be chosen which will be conducted by mail survey.
Data Analysis
Anna Pearce, Emeline Rougeaux and Catherine Law (2015) 'Disadvantaged
children at greater relative risk of thinness (as well as obesity): a secondary data
analysis of the England National Child Measurement Programme and the UK
Millennium Cohort Study
In this research paper they had examined 2620422 four to five year olds social gradient of
thinness, overweight and obesity of children attending state primary schools from
2007/2008 to 2011/2012 in England National Child Measurement Programme (NCMP)
and 16715 children from the UK Millennium Cohort Study (MCS) who were born in
2000 to 2002 and were measured at three, five and seven. The children were then
classified either as being thin, healthy weight, over-weight or obese the researchers had
done this by using age and gender and adjusting the cut off for body mass index (BMI).
The results showed in 2007/2008 to 2011/2012 66584 girls aged four to five-year-old and
78934 boys in the National Child Measurement Programme were classed as thin and, in
the Millennium, cohort study the prevalence of thinness was mostly likely to be thin
rather than those from the advantaged groups. For instance, the children mothers from the
Millennium Cohort Study who had no educational qualifications was 50% most likely to
be thin rather than those whose mother had a university degree. What I liked about this
paper is the researchers argued and showed evidence that children from disadvantaged
backgrounds are more at risk of thinness and obesity and that the government’s policy
makers need to keep in mind he environmental influences on thinness and obesity.

Charmaine Belvin, John Britton, John Holmes, and Tessa Langley (2015) 'Parental
smoking and child poverty in the UK: an analysis of national survey data'
In this research paper they discuss that in 2011 to 2012 around 2 to 3 million children
17% of the UK children was estimated to be living in poverty they also state that smoking
is expensive and is an additional problematic burden on families budgets and is strongly
connected to socioeconomic deprivation. The main objective for this study was to show
how parents smoking connects and is a problem for child poverty in the UK, the
researchers found from 2012 that households below average income report and in the
2012 opinion and lifestyle survey was combined to estimate the number of children who
live in deprived homes of parents who smoke. They had then found out the expenditure
of the smokers in these homes spent on cigarettes and the number of children who live in
poverty if the cost on smoking is subtracted from the families household income. What I
liked about this paper they argued that smoking increases poverty for a large percentage
of the children in the UK and that smoking interventions will effectively be able to
minimise low income parents who are smokers to quit because this will play a vital role
in reducing the financial strain on child poverty.
ETHICAL CONSIDERATIONS
Ethical considerations for conducting any research or survey is the primary section
of study that need to conducted by assessors or performer of survey (Clements, C.C.,and
et.al., 2015). For surveys that are based on the large sample sizes and where health status
or community issue need to analysed, such survey need to have an inclusion for ethical
sections and provisions.
These ethical data can be considered with respect to participants, involved
organizations or bodies. As far as the study relate to asses poverty issues within defined
area of the study, there must be a proper inclusion of consent for participants of the study
(Gostin and Wiley, 2016). Investigators need to perform or initiate their survey or
research study after providing proper description of survey to poor families. They must
proper explained facts, advantages and outcomes of study to each of its participants.

Along with it, assessors must address their participants regarding all the rights related to
denial or exiting the survey.
There are certain ethical considerations in terms of supportive organizations or
healthcare institutions. The investigators are required to have proper consent and letter of
acceptance from considered organizations (Guinosso, Johnson and Riley, 2016). They
need to have a proof of permission given to them the authorities of institutions.
Data protection is also one of the assurance or considerations that need to be
maintained by assessors. The participants are generally do not disclose their personal
information or health issues to investigators because they have misconception that their
information will be misused. Hence, to avoid such instances and to perform smooth
method of data collection, the surveyor must aware these ethical considerations.
Confidentiality is the principle ethical consideration that need to be followed by
the investigators. There must be a proper description to participants regarding their
confidentiality (Heberle and Carter, 2015). There must be a proper description and
assurance given to them for the protection of their data and health information.
OTHER CONSIDERATIONS
Limitation
Limitations commonly take place due to the loopholes exists within the study plan and
supportive elements. These limitations are generally introduced due to actions of
investigators and selection of statistical tools and methods. Some constraints and gaps
within the researches or surveys cannot be eliminate as it is the result of number of
uncontrollable agents or elements persists within the research methodology. Limitation
for the study can be visible in terms of collected data that may be less credible due to
used resources or systems. Other limitations may be introduced due to the data or
information provided by participants which may be incorrect. The results of study may
lose its credibility due to improper usage of statistical tools or application of software.
Budget
1500$