Placemaking to address UK’s ‘health inequality crisis’

The UK has experienced an increase in health inequality over the last two decades, which risks placing enormous pressure on the nation’s social fabric. While the phrase ‘left behind places’ has been coined in recent years to describe towns, coastal communities, and rural areas that have experienced economic turmoil, the impact of poor health outcomes in these areas is less frequently discussed. However, the link between declining productivity and increases in long-term illnesses is clear. Data from the Office for National Statistics shows that around a third of the UK population lives in the UK’s most deprived 10% of places, where nearly one in four people suffer from a long-term illness. Life expectancy in these areas is on average 16 years less than in the most prosperous parts of the country. The poorest and least healthy communities are often located remarkably close to significantly ‘better off’ areas, making the contrast particularly stark. On the Wirral, for example, life expectancy for residents in Birkenhead on the east side of the peninsula is 10 years shorter than for their neighbours in Hoylake and West Kirby on the western coast. Just six miles separates these two areas. 

Complex reasons for divergence

The reasons for this divergence in outcomes are complex, and in many cases relate to broad social changes that have taken place across Europe and North America over the last four decades: deindustrialisation, urbanisation, the growth of the knowledge economy, and the loss of community institutions such as churches and local trade unions. However, a factor often underplayed in these discussions is the quality of the built environment, and its importance in producing positive health outcomes. If we are to address health inequalities, we need to think more holistically about how placemaking can address the problems faced by communities in some of the more deprived parts of the UK.