THE UK HAS failed to match the gains made in reducing deaths among children and young adults by 17 other high-income countries in the European Union, Australia, Canada, and Norway in the years since 1970.
The findings, published in The Lancet, reveal that despite the UK having been in or near the top 25% for all-cause mortality for children and young people up to 24 in 1970, the UK’s pace of decline in mortality has fallen significantly behind the EU15 average over the past four decades.
By 2008, the UK had fallen to the bottom 25% for infants and 1–4 year olds.
Using national death registry data from the WHO World Mortality Database, Professor Russell Viner from the UCL Institute of Child Health, London, UK and colleagues analysed patterns and causes of death among children and young people (aged 0–24 years) in the UK compared with a group of similar wealthy countries between 1970 and 2008.
Deaths from non-communicable diseases in all age groups in the UK fell from being roughly equivalent to the EU15+ average in 1970 to the worst quartile by 2008.
This was largely due to the contribution of drug misuse disorders in young people aged 10–24 and other neuropsychiatric disorders, including epilepsy and cerebral palsy, the paper says.
“Worsening trends in NCD mortality have cancelled out the benefits of the UK’s traditionally low injury mortality”, says Professor Viner.
“Demographic change, including increasing birth rates in the UK compared with other EU15+ countries and increasing prevalence of common chronic disorders in children and adolescents could magnify these differences over the next 20 years.”
According to co-author Dr Ingrid Wolfe from Kings College London in the UK, “There are no simple explanations for the UK’s worsening relative performance, and equally no simple solutions.
“However, our findings show that the growing contribution of NCDs to deaths among children and young people in the UK (around 75% of deaths in children aged 1–9 years and half of all deaths in young people aged 10–24 years) will require a new focus.”
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