Health Equity in England: the Marmot Review 10 Years on

Abstract

Ten years after the landmark review on health inequalities in England, coauthor Michael Marmot says the situation has become worse. The Marmot Review laid out how public expenditureon policies, through the life course, could act on the social determinants of health to reduce health inequalities. The Review may have been welcomed in theory but in reality,under the banner of austerity, public expenditure was cut from 42% of national income in 2009-10, to 35% in 2018-19In a new report, Health Equity in England: the Marmot Review Ten Years On,we show that austerity has taken its toll–inalmost all of the areas identified by theMarmot Review as important for health inequalities –fromrising child povertyand closing of children’s centres, to declines in education funding, to a housing crisis and a rise in homelessness, to people with insufficient money to lead a healthy life and resort to food banks in large number, to left-behind communities with poor conditions and little reason for hope.