Author: lauren.winch

BPI Director’s reaction to ONS report on deaths involving COVID-19 by local area and socioeconomic deprivation

Posted on by lauren.winch

Earlier today (1 May 2020) the Office for National Statistics (ONS) launched a report on Deaths involving COVID-19 by local area and socioeconomic deprivation: deaths occurring between 1 March and 17 April 2020. The statistican for this report noted that “People living in more deprived areas have experienced COVID-19 mortality rates more than double those living in less deprived areas. General mortality rates are normally higher in more deprived areas, but so far COVID-19 appears to be taking them higher still.”

The Director of the Bristol Poverty Institute, Professor David Gordon, has been approached by the media to offer expert opinion on why this may be the case. His response is as follows:

“There are a range of reasons why the death rates in the 30% of the most deprived areas are more than twice as high as in the richest areas.  Firstly, people in poorer areas are more likely to get a Covid-19 infection. They are more likely to be key workers (for example, care assistants, shop assistants, building workers, bus drivers, delivery drivers, etc.) so they are more likely to come into contact with infected people than their peers in richer areas who may be able to work from their homes.  Many key worker jobs are low paid and therefore these key workers often live in deprived areas. People in deprived areas are more likely to have to rely on public transport than people in richer areas and thus come into contact with infectious people. They are also more likely to have worse internet connections and not be able to afford the premium on grocery home delivery services so will need to go out to shop for food more often than people in richer areas. Deprived areas tend to have higher population densities than richer areas; therefore people in these areas are more likely to have contact with an infected person when they leave their homes for exercise, medical care, food shopping, etc.  The higher the population density the more difficult maintaining social distancing is likely to be.

“Secondly, people in poor areas who have a Covid-19 infection are more likely to die. There is a higher risk of severe disease and death from a Covid-19 infection if you have underlying health condition such as hypertension, diabetes, cardiovascular disease, chronic respiratory disease and cancer.  People in deprived areas are more likely to suffer from these particular underlying health conditions than people in richer areas for a range of reasons, such as greater pollution levels, greater stress levels, greater inflammation levels, greater risk of H. Piori infections in childhood, etc. The Inverse Care Law unfortunately still affects the NHS in the UK  – the quality of health care is inversely related to health need, i.e. deprived areas on average have worse health care than richer areas.

“It is very disappointing but not surprising that more people are dying of Covid-19 infections in deprived areas, given the reasons listed above.  However, what is a surprise is that the inequality in death rates between richer and poorer areas from Covid-19  are so much greater than deaths from other causes. In the most deprived 30% of areas people are more than twice as likely to die from Covid-19 infections compared with people in the richest 10% of areas in both England and in Wales – so this is not just a ‘London effect’.  So far the Public Health response to the pandemic has not targeted or tried to shelter people living in deprived areas – this is clearly needed given these new ONS statistics.

“These data tell us about death rates from Covid-19 by area deprivation level but they do not tell us who is dying in these ‘poor’ and ‘rich’ areas.  The assumption is that poor people are more likely to die of Covid-19 than rich people but these data do not prove this.  They of course also do not tell us why there are much higher death rates in poorer areas but we can make an educated guess as to the causes.”

 

The full ONS report can be accessed here: https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/birthsdeathsandmarriages/deaths/bulletins/deathsinvolvingcovid19bylocalareasanddeprivation/deathsoccurringbetween1marchand17april 

 

What we’ve been up to: interdisciplinary seminars

Posted on by lauren.winch

With the new academic year on the horizon the BPI team are busy planning an exciting suite of events and activities for the coming year, building on last year’s successes and learnings. In the 2018-19 academic year we ran a wide range of events, from a one-day conference on 50years of Poverty Research to an NGO-Academia Collaboration Forum on Poverty and Malnutrition in Low-and Middle-Income countries, and from a book launch to interactive workshops. Whilst many of these events welcomed and encouraged external participation our main focus for our first year of activity was on building internal awareness and engagement, both of the BPI itself but also across and between researchers working in different poverty-relevant fields.

In October 2018 we therefore launched a new interdisciplinary lunchtime seminar series on broad themes relevant to poverty research. The key aims of this series were to facilitate networking, to showcase the range and value of research taking place on poverty-relevant themes across schools and faculties, to expose researchers to different perspectives and approaches, and to set collaborations in motion. We also welcomed participants who are not currently working directly on poverty-focussed projects, as a key purpose of these seminars was to bring together researchers working in relevant fields and to try and expand the community of UoB researchers engaged with poverty-relevant issues.

This seminar series explored a diverse range of topics, and prompted lively debate and discussion within the rooms. This year’s topics were:

All the seminars were very well attended with highly interdisciplinary audiences. All six faculties were represented across the series, including researchers from engineering, veterinary sciences, population health, history, chemistry, English, human geography, biological sciences, linguistics, experimental psychology, earth sciences, archaeology and anthropology, and translational health alongside a wide range of social sciences. These attendees spanned all career stages from Masters students to Professors, with around 50% of attendees at PhD or early-career stage. The range of speakers were similarly diverse, with at least three faculties represented in every panel including an average of 1.5 PhD/early-career, 2 mid-career and 2.5 senior-career speakers per panel.

We are pleased to announce that we will be continuing this seminar series in the 2019-20 academic year, alongside a portfolio of other exciting activities and initiatives. This year’s seminars are looking to explore a range of interesting topics, including the intersections between poverty and themes such as gender, conflict, infrastructure, technology, mental health, and sustainable energy.

Keep an eye on our website and twitter for more announcements, and feel free to get in touch via bristol-poverty-institute@bristol.ac.uk if you have any questions or are interested in learning more about the Bristol Poverty Institute. We look forward to hearing from you!

World Hunger Day 2019

Posted on by lauren.winch

Tomorrow, Tuesday 28th May, is World Hunger Day. Established by The Hunger Project, this initiative seeks to promote a multidimensional approach to hunger and poverty, including work opportunities, health, education, social justice, women’s rights, and sustainability. This therefore strongly resonates with the aims and ambitions of the BPI.

On this WHD we therefore wanted to highlight the ways that we are engaging with issues at the intersections of hunger and poverty, including:

  • Our internal seminar on Eating ‘Well’, which brought together academics from a wide variety of disciplines to explore what it means to eat ‘well’, and how this can be linked to poverty.
  • Our NGO-Academia collaboration forum on Poverty and Malnutrition in Low- and Middle-Income Countries in partnership with Development Initiatives, exploring how NGOs and academics can effectively work together.
  • Participating in Feeding Bristol’s recent workshop, which was a fantastic opportunity to come together with people from a range of sectors and backgrounds with the shared ambition of achieving food security and zero hunger. We are meeting with Feeding Bristol shortly to explore how we can work together further.

We also have some exciting upcoming events in this space:

  • We are supporting a day of intersectoral workshops on UK rural food poverty in collaboration with IFAN and Food Power. Contact sabinegoodwin@gmail.com, IFAN Coordinator, for more information.
  • We will be partnering with 91 Ways to bring students and staff together with community members to explore the challenges that people in Bristol face.

These are currently invitation-only; however, information will be available on our website shortly.

Finally, we are in the process of establishing a BPI research cluster in the broad space of ‘food and water’; we’re therefore keen to continue to develop discussions in this space, and to work with partners to reduce levels of hunger and poverty in multiple contexts.

Welcome to the Bristol Poverty Institute blog!

Posted on by lauren.winch

Welcome to the new blog site for the Bristol Poverty Institute (BPI) at the University of Bristol!

Follow this blog for news, views and opinions on a wide range of poverty-relevant topics from BPI members, including leading experts in the fields of education, sociology, child health, poverty measurement, and many others.

To find out more about the BPI please visit our website or follow us on Twitter.

Please note that individual authors are responsible for the content of all blog posts, and they do not necessarily reflect the opinion of the BPI or University of Bristol.