28 April 2022
Employment, housing and education are key in addressing the UK’s health and wellbeing inequalities
The latest edition of Legal & General’s Rebuilding Britain Index (RBI) shows improvements across Jobs and the Economy are offset by a worrying downward trend in Britain’s access to healthcare and housing, with an overall flat score of 64/100.
- The UK is among only a small number of industrialised nations which have seen life expectancy improvements stall over the last decade – health is one of only two components of the RBI to have consistently fallen each quarter since its inception in April 2021, driven by the perceived challenges being felt locally in accessing timely primary and secondary healthcare services.
- Legal & General’s research shows there is a clear link between all forms of built and economic infrastructure with both health outcomes and the UK’s sense of wellbeing and happiness. Across the UK, only 62% of people feel satisfied with their lives, while only 61% state that they feel happy.
- Those satisfied with their local area as a place to live score 20 points higher on Health, Housing, Transport and Environment index scores – the most important measure impacting levels of satisfaction with people’s local area is access to high quality primary care (62%)