UK has top child death rate in west of Europe
BRITAIN has one of the highest death rates for infants and young children in western Europe, researchers revealed last night.
Last year, 3,800 under-fives died in the UK – more than anywhere else in the region.
The UK’s mortality rate of 4.9 deaths per 1,000 children aged under five is more than double the figure for Iceland, the country with the lowest rate.
The appalling record is partly due to the prevalence of drinking and smoking during pregnancy, as well as high levels of inequality, experts said.
Within western Europe, Britain had the worst record for deaths of children aged one to four, and one of the worst for those in their first six days and those aged from a month to a year old. In Europe as a whole, the record is on a par with that of Serbia and Poland.
Dr Christopher Murray, who led the US study at the University of Washington in Seattle, said: ‘We were surprised by these findings because the UK has made so many significant advances in public health over the years.
‘The higher-than-expected child
‘Suffer and die needlessly’
death rates in the UK are a reminder to all of us that, even as we are seeing child mortality decline worldwide, countries need to examine what they are doing to make sure more children grow into adulthood.’
Judged alongside countries outside Europe, Britain had a higher childhood death rate than Australia, Israel, Japan, Singapore and South Korea.
Although the childhood death rate fell between 1990 and 2013, the speed of the decline slowed, said the researchers in The Lancet medical journal.
Across Europe as a whole, death rates for under-fives were substantially worse in central and eastern regions than in the west.
The rate for central Europe was 6.7 per 1,000 births and for eastern Europe it was 9.7.
Dr Richard Horton, editor in chief of The Lancet, said: ‘Until our politicians begin to take the health of children – the next generation of British citizens – more seriously, newborns and older children will continue to suffer and die needlessly.’