Ministerial Task Force on Health Inequalities: report 2013

7. Annex B - Long term monitoring of health inequalities

Headline Indicators - Summary of trends as of October 2012

• Healthy life expectancy at birth: a new methodology means change over time cannot be measured, but there continues to be inequalities in both relative and absolute terms.
• Premature Mortality (all causes, under 75 years): since 2006, inequalities have been stable in relative terms, and have fallen in absolute terms.
• Mental Wellbeing ( WEMWBS): inequalities are increasing in absolute terms but remain stable in relative terms.
• Low birth weight: inequalities are narrowing in both absolute and relative terms.
• Hospital admissions for heart attack (under 75 years): over time inequalities have fluctuated in both absolute and relative terms, but with no clear long-term trend.
• Coronary Heart Disease ( CHD) deaths (45-74 years): inequalities are narrowing in absolute terms and, following a long-term increase, have begun to stabilise in relative terms.
• Cancer incidence (under 75 years): over the long term, inequalities are stable in both absolute and relative terms.
• Cancer deaths (45-74 years): over the long term there has been a slight increase in relative inequality, although this has been more stable since 2004. Absolute inequalities have fluctuated over time with no clear trend.
• Alcohol - first hospital admission (under 75 years): the level of absolute inequality has fallen since 2007, while relative inequality has remained stable over the same period.
• Alcohol - deaths (45-74 years): inequalities have reduced since a peak in 2006 in both relative and absolute terms, but remain higher than in 1998.
• All-cause mortality (15-44 years): inequalities have grown in relative terms over the long term, but have stabilised in recent years. Absolute inequality shows no clear trend over the time.

Relative Index of Inequality ( RII): how steep is the inequalities gradient? This measure describes the gradient of health observed across the deprivation scale, relative to the mean health of the whole population.

Absolute gap: how big is the gap? This measure describes the absolute difference between the extremes of deprivation - the rate in the most deprived minus the rate in the least deprived group.