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Life expectancy is about more than just health – it’s about the kind of society we live in. And in the early 2010s, after decades of continual improvement, life expectancy in the UK, US and many other rich countries stopped increasing. For millions of people, it actually declined. Despite hundreds of thousands of extra deaths, governments and officials remained silent.
Combining robust evidence with real-life stories, this book demonstrates how austerity policies caused this scandal. It argues that this shocking and tragic suffering was predictable, caused by a dereliction of duty from those in power.
The book concludes with an optimistic vision of what can be done to restore life expectancy improvements and reduce health inequalities.
David Walsh is Senior Lecturer in Health Inequalities at the University of Glasgow and previously Programme Manager at the Glasgow Centre for Population Health.
Gerry McCartney is Professor of Wellbeing Economy at the University of Glasgow and Honorary Consultant in Public Health at Public Health Scotland.
Michael
1. Introduction
Rachel
2. What happened in the UK?
Frances
3. Why have mortality rates and life expectancy changed in the UK?
Paul
4. What happened to life expectancy in other countries, and why?
Moira
5. How did governments and agencies respond to the life expectancy crisis?
Ellen
6. What else is relevant for understanding the changed life expectancy trends?
David
7. What do we need to do?
Appendix: Summary of the causal evidence that austerity has led to the mortality trend changes