England Health Profile 2006

What the Health Profile shows.
http://www.dh.gov.uk/assetRoot/04/13/95/22/04139522.pdf
A general improvement in health outcomes
The report shows recent improvements in a number of critical areas, eg: - declining mortality rates in targeted killers (cancers, all circulatory diseases and suicides) - increasing life expectancy, now at its highest ever level - reducing infant mortality, now at its lowest ever level.
However, in some areas particular challenges remain to achieve and sustain progress, eg: - rising rates of diabetes. Similarly for the determinants of
health: although we are making improvements in some important areas, eg: - occurrence of smoking - quality of housing stock - child poverty
there are a number of areas of concern, eg:
- increasing levels of obesity in adults and children
- high levels of teenage pregnancy.
And even where we are seeing improvements, health inequalities are often present.
The report illustrates various inequalities by:
- geography - within England, across the UK, across Europe
- gender
- ethnicity
- socio-economic group
- age.
In some cases, these are improving over time, eg: - reducing absolute gap between disadvantaged areas and the national average for cancer and circulatory disease mortality rates.
But in others, gaps are static or widening, eg: - inequality in infant mortality between routine and manual workers and the national average - inequality in life expectancy at birth between disadvantaged areas and the national average - socio-economic inequality in childhood obesity.