On 15 June 2004, the Public Health Alliance Ireland has launched a publication outlining health inqualities and the links to other forms of social and economic disadvantage.
Health in Ireland: An unequal Statebrings together information and evidence from a wide variety of sources. The Public Health Alliance Ireland is an independent alliance whose mission is to work together for a healthier society by improving health and challenging health inequalities
The report highlights three key points:
1. People’s health is determined by their social, economic, environmental and political context.
2. Poorer people and people experiencing exclusion, get sick more often and have shorter lives.
3. A fairer society is a healthier society.
Facts on inequalities in Ireland
Between 1989 and 1998 the death rates for all causes of death were over three times higher in the lowest occupational class than in the highest.
The death rates for all cancers among the lowest occupational class is over twice as high for the highest class, it is nearly three times higher for strokes, four times higher for lung cancer, and six times higher for accidents.
Perinatal mortality is three times higher in poorer families than in richer families.
Women in the unemployed socio-economic group are more than twice as likely to give birth to low birth weight children as women in the higher professional group.
The incidence of chronic physical illness has been found to be two and a half times higher for poor people than for the wealthy.
Men in unskilled jobs were four times more likely to be admitted to hospital for schizophrenia than higher professional workers.
The rate of hospitalisation for mental illness is more than 6 times higher for people in the lower socio-economic groups as compared with those in the higher groups.
The incidence of male suicide is far higher in the lower socio-economic groups as compared with the higher groups.
The 1998 and 2002 National Health and Lifestyle Surveys, (SLAN) found that poorer people are more likely to smoke cigarettes, drink alcohol excessively, take less exercise, eat less fruit and vegetables than richer people.
On average 39% of people surveyed in 2003 identified financial problems as the greatest factor in preventing them from improving their health.
Some groups experience particularly extreme health inequalities: Members of the Traveller community live between 10 and 12 years less than the population as a whole - the 2002 census found that only 3 per cent of all Travellers were aged over 65, as compared with 11 per cent for the population generally.
The rate of sudden infant deaths among travellers is 12 times higher than for the general population.
Researchers have found that many expectant mothers in direct provision suffer malnutrition, babies in these communities suffer ill-health because of diet, many adults experience hunger.
Homeless people experience high incidence of ill-health - a 1997 report found that 40 per cent of hostel dwellers had a serious psychiatric illness, 42 per cent had problems of alcohol dependency, 18 per cent had other physical problems.
The incidence of injecting drug abuse use is almost entirely confined to people from the lower socio-economic groups.
