COVID-19: UK must ’Build Back Fairer’ warns new Marmot Review

A generation of children and young people risk worsening health and having shorter lives post the COVID-19 pandemic, warns Professor Sir Michael Marmot, Director of UCL's Institute of Health Equity, in his new landmark report published today. Build Back Fairer: The COVID-19 Marmot Review notes that in England the excess death rate linked to COVID-19 is higher than anywhere else in Europe. Pandemic containment measures (lockdowns, tier systems, social isolation) have harmed children and young people's well-being and has damaged everyone's prospect for improved long-term health. The new review builds on the UCL Institute of Health Equity's Health Equity in England: The Marmot Review 10 Years On, published in February this year. England entered the pandemic already in a poor state of health; improvement in life expectancy was slower than in almost every other rich country, and the numbers of people in poor health was risking; inequalities in health between socioeconomic groups and regions were rising; and life expectancy for people living in the most deprived areas was actually going down. Child poverty had increased and public services had been cut, in an unfair way: steeper cuts in poorer areas. A decade of austerity had damaged the nation's health.