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Scale of youth unemployment is a public health emergency, Marmot says

BMJ 2011; 343 doi: https://doi.org/10.1136/bmj.d7608 (Published 23 November 2011) Cite this as: BMJ 2011;343:d7608
  1. Matthew Limb
  1. 1London

The scale of youth unemployment across Europe is now a public health emergency, says a world renowned expert on health inequalities.

Michael Marmot, the director of University College London’s new Institute for Health Equity, said that 21% of young people in the European Union were without jobs and faced poor long term prospects for their health as governments “fumbled” to keep pace with economic events.

“This is a warning call. We have to do something really quickly,” he told a conference at the BMA in London. “If we do nothing it will contribute greatly to increasing inequalities in health.”

Health Action Partnership International, a not-for-profit organisation, invited some 200 experts to take part in the conference, called “Social determinants of health: European and global actions,” on 21 and 22 November. They discussed what Europe could do to take forward themes from the world conference on social determinants of health held in Rio de Janeiro last month (BMJ 2011;343:d6822, doi:10.1136/bmj.d6822).

Sir Michael said that the political declaration signed at Rio on 21 October, pledging action to tackle health inequities and inequalities between and within countries, was of “great significance.”

But he said that one drawback was that it represented agreement only among health ministers, when what was also needed was “treasury ministers and employment ministers talking to each other.”

He said that health equity should be central to all government policies and that policies needed to take account of their wider effect on people’s lives. He told the conference, “You can’t work on social determinants of health without having social justice at the centre.”

Sir Michael, who produced a review of health inequalities in England, Fair Society, Healthy Lives, in February 2010 (BMJ 2010;340:c818, doi:10.1136/bmj.c818), is leading a European review of social determinants of health and the health divide for the World Health Organization.

He said that his “blood ran cold” at the thought that the newly elected Spanish government would try to tackle youth unemployment levels of 40% through further austerity measures. The current financial crisis in Europe meant that more investment was needed in the development of children in the early years and in schooling to produce an educated workforce, he said, adding that governments had policy levers available to tackle poverty, health inequality, and social disadvantage.

“Action on the social determinants of health will contribute to [economic] recovery,” he said.

In a later speech England’s health secretary, Andrew Lansley, acknowledged the rise in the number of 18-24 year olds who are not in employment, education, or training. He said that there was a “clear correlation” between unemployment and long term health outcomes.

The coalition government regarded action as imperative, he said. It was developing a growth strategy and welfare reforms to help more people back into work. “Our policy is to create jobs,” he told the conference.

Ilona Kickbusch, director of the global health programme at the Graduate Institute of International and Development Studies, Geneva, said that political and social change taking place around the world in response to the economic crisis marked a “turning point” and opportunity for the public health movement. She said that people’s rights to better health could not be separated from demands for more democracy or improvements in social, economic, and environmental conditions.

“We need to reframe what public health should be doing. We must be more politically astute than we have been,” she said.

Zsuzsanna Jakab, director general of WHO’s regional office for Europe, said that the Rio declaration was not enough for change to occur and that more must be done on health promotion, to foster cooperation between sectors, and to tackle “system weaknesses” across Europe.

Notes

Cite this as: BMJ 2011;343:d7608

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