Breaking the link between wealth and health
Why we’re backing the Health Equals campaign for a stronger Health Bill
Four years ago, we co-hosted an event on the ‘health gap’ with the Policy Institute at King’s College London. The event featured remarks by Professor Sir Michael Marmot on the acute health inequalities driving unfair outcomes across society:
“If we create a fairer society, health will improve and health inequalities will diminish. What more important task could there be before us?”
Four years later, that task remains as urgent as ever, and yet is still unfinished. In fact, by some measures we seem to be going in the wrong direction. In April 2026, the Health Foundation published new research that showed a fall in healthy life expectancy in the UK of about two years between 2012-14 and 2022-24. The evidence continues to show that people in the poorest areas of England live around 18 fewer years in good health than those in the wealthiest areas.
These health disparities don’t exist in isolation. Instead, they are compounded by a corresponding ‘wealth gap’ that has grown significantly in recent years. In fact, according to our research, the wealth gap between the top 10% and the bottom 10% in the UK increased by 54% between 2011 and 2021 (from £7.5 trillion to £11.5 trillion).
A growing and convincing body of evidence reveals that the wealth gap and the health gap appear as two sides of the same coin, mutually reinforcing each other’s most damaging consequences across our economy and society. In our Wealth Gap Risk Register, we document the evidence for over forty impacts of the wealth gap, the majority of which affect health directly or indirectly through channels such as housing, labour markets, mental health and opportunity.
For those at the bottom end of the wealth distribution, the absence of assets and the presence of poverty have acute impacts on mental and physical health through stress, poor living conditions and exposure to financial shocks such as ill-health or redundancy. Unlike wealthier households, those with little or no wealth have no buffer against these pressures and bear the full weight of their consequences. In fact, research increasingly reveals how wealth inequality corrodes the building blocks of good health and undermines the conditions that keep people well in the first place.
Take housing as an example: the evidence shows that greater parental housing wealth is associated with fewer emotional and behavioural problems in children, and healthier psychological development, yet housing wealth remains highly concentrated. Or consider debt: people on lower incomes are significantly more likely to be in problem debt, creating chronic stress that can trigger depression and other adverse mental health consequences. Wider economic disparities can also be linked to mental health challenges, as economic inequality tends to amplify concerns about social standing and relative status, increasing anxiety and other psychosocial problems.
Most strikingly, the gap in healthy life expectancy is profoundly shaped by socioeconomic factors. People in poorer communities spend a substantial part of their lives dealing with long-term illness and disability, and the evidence shows that low levels of wealth are strongly linked to higher risks of death and disability among older adults.
The public, meanwhile, understands these inequalities as deeply unfair because they create an uneven playing field between people. In July 2024, we commissioned Focaldata to run a poll with a representative sample of 2,012 people from across the UK to build an understanding of peoples’ perceptions of wealth inequality and its consequences. We found that 58% say that wealth inequality has a negative impact on people’s physical health, with only 11% believing it to have a positive impact. This echoed our previous polling in 2024, in which 70% of respondents identified inequalities in health and life expectancy as a big or moderate problem. And a poll that we ran with Opinium in 2023 found that 50% of people believe that their or their families’ health has been negatively affected by their economic situation, while a similar proportion cite the negative health impacts of their job.
What we’re calling for
This public mandate for action must now be met with political will, in order to meet the challenge set by Professor Marmot and many others. In response to that challenge, we’re proud to play our part in a coalition of over 100 organisations, led by Health Equals, calling on the Government to strengthen the Health Bill.
Specifically, we are backing the call for improved duties in the Bill to reduce health inequalities, alongside a requirement for the government to publish a cross-government strategy with clear targets and accountability, cementing action on health inequalities in law.
Of course, this legislation alone will not be entirely sufficient. Alongside these changes, we need to go further to tackle extreme wealth inequality and we need to see bolder action from the government to address its consequences. That means dealing with the lack of assets at the bottom of the wealth distribution that are pushing people into insecurity and precarity, and giving more people chances to build ordinary levels of wealth. It also means addressing the concentration of wealth, and the power that concentration confers on a tiny number of people in our society, ensuring that everyone fairly contributes based on their means.
These are long-term challenges. Yet while the UK state is notoriously short-termist in its approach to policymaking, they must be addressed without any further delay. Labour’s manifesto rightly pledged to “tackle the social determinants of health, halving the gap in healthy life expectancy between the richest and poorest regions in England.” The government now has a genuine opportunity to make that historic change, by building communities where wealth does not determine health and creating a society and economy that is not only healthier, but fairer as well. That opportunity must not be wasted.