Medical Researchers have recently published new data in the British Medical Journal looking at Europe wide data on the effect in people’s health if they are in receipt of benefits which are subsequently cut.
According to the BBC ‘Analysis of European data showed that a £70 reduction in welfare spending per person is associated with a 2.8% rise in alcohol-related deaths and 1.2% rise in deaths from heart disease.
Writing in the British Medical Journal, the UK research team said ordinary people may be paying the ultimate price for budget cuts.
One expert added that social support was vital for health.
The study comes after the government announced sweeping budget cuts, including reductions in tax credits for families, housing benefit and maternity grants.
To pick out the effects of welfare funding on health, researchers looked at government spending in 15 European countries, including the UK, from 1980 to 2005.
Generally the trends showed that when social spending - including support for families and the unemployed - was high, death rates fell, but when they were low, rates rose substantially.
In fact, for every £70 drop in spending per person there was a 1.19% rise in overall deaths.
The biggest effect was seen in illnesses linked to social circumstances, such as heart disease.
And a more in-depth look showed that this link was specific to social welfare spending and independent of healthcare spending.
The analysis also showed that reducing other forms of government spending, such as on the military or prisons, had no such negative impact on the public's health.
There are currently around 200,000 heart disease deaths each year in the UK and around 9,000 deaths from alcohol.'
It’s hardly a new or startling insight that a lack of money and poor health are related, but it’s certainly one that needs to be repeated over and over if the Con/Lib Dems Government is not to repeat the same mistake as previous Tory and even Labour Governments by dumping people on to welfare and expecting them to sort their lives out.Any source
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