Economic policy makers need to take health seriously

Evidence shows clearly that much of today’s NHS workload was created by yesterday’s economic policy.1Healthy People, Prosperous Lives, the first report from the commission on health and prosperity of the Institute for Public Policy Research (IPPR) aims to persuade economic policy makers to take health more seriously by emphasising that health is a key input to the economy as well as a key output from it.2 The report describes a UK that is becoming both sicker and poorer, with rising rates of chronic illness and millions of people struggling with the costs of living.3 The authors argue for the creation of four new institutions to support a long term mission to improve our population’s health and wealth together.The emphasis on the economic effect of poor health is supported by the report’s main research finding. Analysis of longitudinal data from thousands of working age people both before (2014-19) and during the…
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