Study: Most deprived areas in England and Wales deadly affected by Covid

A new study has revealed that the most deprived areas in England and Wales were more severely affected than first thought, reported The Guardian. 

• The north-west lost three times more years of life than the south-west due to the pandemic.
• According to the study led by the University of Manchester and published in the journal PLOS Medicine, the full scale of inequalities has been underestimated as deaths have been unevenly distributed socioeconomically and geographically. 
• Researchers said that looking at excess deaths alone underestimates years of life lost and does not account for the differences in ages at which people die in different social groups.

As part of the study, researchers measured years of life lost attributable to the pandemic – directly or indirectly, as well as excess deaths, the newspaper report said.

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Years of life lost is a strong measure of premature mortality because it takes into account both the number of deaths and the age at which they occur.

"The impact of the pandemic, when quantified using years of life lost, was higher than previously thought on the most deprived areas of England and Wales, widening pre-existing health inequalities,” Evangelos Kontopantelis, who led the research, was quoted as saying by The Guardian.

Between March and December 2020, 1,645 years of life were lost per 100,000 of the population in the most deprived areas of England and Wales. In the most affluent areas, 916 years of life were lost per 100,000 people.

According to the study, the highest rate was found in the north-west, where 1,550 years of life were lost per 100,000 of the population. The north-east (1,519) was the second worst-hit area, followed by the West Midlands (1,475).

The lowest rate was in the south-west, where 490 years of life were lost per 100,000 of the population. Next was the south-central region (735), followed by the east of England (779).

There were 11 times as many excess deaths in deprived areas compared with the most affluent areas in 15- to 44-year-olds, three times as many in 45- to 64-year-olds, and almost twice as many in 65- to 74-year-olds. Excess deaths were 40 per cent higher in 75- to 84-year-olds living in the most deprived areas compared with the least.

According to the researchers, future plans to manage pandemics should include an understanding of regional and socioeconomic variation in years of life lost and how this has exacerbated long-standing health inequalities.

“These findings reiterate that the pandemic has been very unequal – people in our most deprived communities have suffered most," Clare Bambra, a professor of public health at the University of Newcastle, told The Guardian.