UK child death rate: a scandal with a clear link to poverty
Nearly five in every thousand babies born in Britain will not live to their fifth birthday, and experts say inequality is to blame
The death of a child is always a tragedy. The avoidable deaths of thousands of children under five years old every year in the UK is a scandal, according to the Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health (RCPCH) and the National Children's Bureau, who say that inequalities in our society which leave many families in poverty and deprivation are to blame.
Their views, expressed in a report this week, Why Children Die, put flesh on stark new statistics published on Friday from the most authoritative number-crunchers on health in the world, the Institute of Health Metrics and Evaluation in Seattle, part of Washington University. In their paper,published in the Lancet, they show that children under five in the UK are more likely to die than in any other western European country except Malta. Nearly five babies of every 1,000 born in the UK will not live to their fifth birthday. Guardian
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