Health inequalities and New Labour: how the promises compare with real progress BMJ today

Mary Shaw, reader in medical sociology, George Davey Smith, professor of clinical epidemiolog, Danny Dorling, professor of human geography

Inequalities in health between rich and poor areas of Britain widened in the 1980s and 1990s, and the current government has repeatedly expressed its intention to reduce these inequalities. In this article, however, the authors report that inequalities in life expectancy have continued to widen, alongside widening inequalities in income and wealth.



British Medical Journal 2005;330:1016-1021 (30 April), doi:10.1136/bmj.330.7498.1016