WS MoreOrLess: Measuring World Health
More or Less
BBC
4.6 • 3.7K Ratings
🗓️ 14 March 2015
⏱️ 10 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Babies born in Rwanda are likely to live healthier lives than those in the most deprived 10% of England, according to recent reports. But does the data back this up? And how is "good health" measured across the world? Hannah Moore and Wesley Stephenson explore the numbers with Professor David Gordon from Bristol University’s International Poverty Research Centre. This programme was first broadcast on the BBC World Service.
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | This is the short edition of Morales, first broadcast on the BBC World Service. |
| 0:06.0 | Thank you for downloading from the BBC. |
| 0:09.0 | The details of our complete range of podcasts and our terms of use go to BBCWorldService.com slash podcasts. |
| 0:22.0 | Hello and welcome to Morales on the BBC World Service. I'm Hannah Moore. |
| 0:28.0 | On this week's programme, we'll be returning to the subject of sleep. |
| 0:32.0 | But first, a claim from UK newspaper The Telegraph caught my eye recently. |
| 0:37.0 | Babies born in the poorest parts of the UK today have worse prospects for a long and healthy life than those born in Rwanda. |
| 0:44.0 | Is that true? Wesley Stevenson's here to help me explain. |
| 0:48.0 | Right, well, this claim seems surprising considering the two countries comparative wealth. |
| 0:53.0 | The UK is one of the world's richest countries. The sixth richest, according to data from the World Bank, while Rwanda in Central Africa is one of the poorest. |
| 1:01.0 | The Telegraph article compares figures for England, not the whole of the UK as the headline suggests, from the Office for National Statistics, with World Health Organization figures for Rwanda. |
| 1:12.0 | These show that a baby born into the most deprived 10% of England can expect to live to 76. |
| 1:18.0 | A baby born in Rwanda will, on average, live to 65. |
| 1:23.0 | So, as you can tell, life expectancy is better in England, even the most deprived parts than it is in Rwanda as a whole. |
| 1:32.0 | But the headline is a little bit more subtle than that. |
| 1:35.0 | What it says is that babies born in the poorest parts of the UK today have worse prospects for a long and healthy life than those born in Rwanda. |
| 1:45.0 | So, it's not talking about how long people live, but how long people live in good health. |
| 1:51.0 | The ONS says people in the bottom 10% of England will spend, on average, 52 of their 76 years in good health. |
| 2:00.0 | But a baby born into the top 10% could expect to live for 71 years in good health. |
| 2:06.0 | It's pretty startling that there's a 19-year gap between the highest and lowest health expectancy. |
| 2:11.0 | Yes, astonishing, isn't it? And the telegraph goes on to tell us a baby born in Rwanda today can expect to live 55 years in good health. |
| 2:19.0 | And remember, it's 52 years for the most deprived in England. |
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