Child health: a multisectoral and multidimensional betrayal

Child health is being betrayed, and the physical and mental health of children is in appalling decline. This verdict belongs not to a fortune hunting social media influencer but to a new report from the Academy of Medical Sciences (doi:10.1136/bmj.q313).1 The UK was recently ranked 30 out of 49 Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development countries on infant mortality. The Joseph Rowntree Foundation estimates that the number of children experiencing destitution tripled to around one million over five years (jrf.org.uk/deep-poverty-and-destitution/destitution-in-the-uk-2023).2 The academy’s report calls for urgent action to tackle workforce issues and social determinants, to name but two factors that are damaging children’s long term health and life chances.The benefits of investing in child health are well established, and the current crisis speaks of wilful neglect and short term policy making (doi:10.1136/bmj.q282).3 The crisis is a common theme in the “great” democracies of the UK, US, and India, each of…
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