Explanations for higher-than-expected all-cause mortality from April 2021: A scoping review.

Objectives: Many countries have continued to experience a higher-than-expected number of deaths following the peaks in mortality observed in the first year of the Covid-19 pandemic. This review aims to identify the different explanations proposed for sustained higher-than-expected mortality beyond the first pandemic year.

Study Design: Scoping review.

'Renoviction' and health: an emerging research agenda.

Mitigating climate change requires us to rapidly improve the energy efficiency of our existing housing, a process known as 'retrofit'. However, this creates the risk of 'renoviction', whereby tenants are moved or evicted to allow these renovations to take place. Understanding the potential for renoviction to undermine the potential population health benefits of retrofit is an important new area for research.

What is the relationship between changes in the size of economies and mortality derived population health measures in high income countries: A causal systematic review.

Context: The economy has been long recognised as an important determinant of population health and a healthy population is considered important for economic prosperity.

Aim: To systematically review the evidence for a causal bidirectional relationship between aggregate economic activity (AEA) at national level for High Income Countries, and 1) population health (using mortality and life expectancy rates as indicators) and 2) inequalities in population health.

Methods: We undertook a systematic review of quantitative studies considering the relationship between AEA (GDP, GNI, GNP or recession) and population health (mortality or life expectancy) and inequalities for High Income Countries.

The changing shape of general practice in Scotland: the rise of the 'megapractice'.

Objectives: To describe the trends in the nature of general practices in Scotland between 2014/15 and 2023.

Study Design: Descriptive ecological study.

Methods: We obtained data from Public Health Scotland and used general practitioner (GP) practice codes, practice names, and the General Medical Council (GMC) numbers of their listed GPs to describe trends in practice characteristics and to identify individual practices that were likely to be operating as a single entity.

Is Austerity Responsible for the Stalled Mortality Trends Across Many High-Income Countries? A Systematic Review.

This article systematically reviews evidence evaluating whether macroeconomic austerity policies impact mortality, reviewing high-income country data compiled through systematic searches of nine databases and gray literature using pre-specified methods (PROSPERO registration: CRD42020226609). Eligible studies were quantitatively assessed to determine austerity's impact on mortality. Two reviewers independently assessed eligibility and risk of bias using ROBINS-I.

Health Economics in a World of Uneconomic Growth.

Multiple, accelerating and interacting ecological crises are increasingly understood as constituting a major threat to human health and well-being. Unconstrained economic growth is strongly implicated in these growing crises, and it has been argued that this growth has now become "uneconomic growth", which is a situation where the size of the economy is still expanding, but this expansion is causing more harm than benefit. This article summarises the multiple pathways by which uneconomic growth can be expected to harm human health.

Medical tourism and medical tourists: providing a sustainable course to integrating health treatments with tourism.

Medical tourism (MT) is an expanding multidisciplinary economic activity that combines the healthcare and tourist industries, with patients increasingly travelling worldwide for medical treatments. MT provides economic benefits to destinations while raising ethical, quality, informed and risk concerns for medical tourists. Greater cross-disciplinary studies and collaboration across sectors are advocated.

Estimating quality-adjusted life expectancy (QALE) for local authorities in Great Britain and its association with indicators of the inclusive economy: a cross-sectional study.

Objectives: Quantifying area-level inequalities in population health can help to inform policy responses. We describe an approach for estimating quality-adjusted life expectancy (QALE), a comprehensive health expectancy measure, for local authorities (LAs) in Great Britain (GB). To identify potential factors accounting for LA-level QALE inequalities, we examined the association between inclusive economy indicators and QALE.

Assessing the effects of population-level political, economic and social exposures, interventions and policies on inclusive economy outcomes for health equity in high-income countries: a systematic review of reviews.

Background: A fairer economy is increasingly recognised as crucial for tackling widening social, economic and health inequalities within society. However, which actions have been evaluated for their impact on inclusive economy outcomes is yet unknown.

Objective: Identify the effects of political, economic and social exposures, interventions and policies on inclusive economy (IE) outcomes in high-income countries, by systematically reviewing the review-level evidence.

Causal Assessment of Income Inequality on Self-Rated Health and All-Cause Mortality: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis.

Unlabelled: Policy Points Income is thought to impact a broad range of health outcomes. However, whether income inequality (how unequal the distribution of income is in a population) has an additional impact on health is extensively debated. Studies that use multilevel data, which have recently increased in popularity, are necessary to separate the contextual effects of income inequality on health from the effects of individual income on health.

How Controversy and Socioeconomic Factors Influence Stem Cell Research.

Adult stem cells dominate worldwide stem cell clinical trials. We investigated factors that may explain levels of stem cell research across different countries. Stem cell trials from clinicaltrials.

Social security cuts and life expectancy: a longitudinal analysis of local authorities in England, Scotland and Wales.

Background: The UK Government's 'welfare reform' programme included reductions to social security payments, phased in over the financial years 2011/2012-2015/2016. Previous studies of social security cuts and health outcomes have been restricted to analysing single UK countries or single payment types (eg, housing benefit). We examined the association between all social security cuts fully implemented by 2016 and life expectancy, for local authorities in England, Scotland and Wales.

What is missing from how we measure and understand the experience of poverty and deprivation in population health analyses?

Background: Explaining why some populations are healthier than others is a core task of epidemiology. Socioeconomic position (SEP), encompassing a broad range of exposures relating to economic circumstances, social class and deprivation, is an important explanation, but lacks a comprehensive framework for understanding the range of relevant exposures it encompasses.

Methods: We reviewed existing literature on experiential accounts of poverty through database searching and the identification of relevant material by experts.

How important is it to avoid indices of deprivation that include health variables in analyses of health inequalities?

Objectives: This study aimed to quantify the difference in mortality inequalities using the Scottish Index of Multiple Deprivation (SIMD) and the Income and Employment Index (IEI; a subindex of SIMD, which excludes health) as ranking measures in Scotland.

Study Design: This ecological study was a cross-sectional analysis of routine administrative data.

Methods: Data from the 2020 SIMD and the subindex using data from only the Income and Employment domains, the IEI, were obtained.

How to measure progress towards a wellbeing economy: distinguishing genuine advances from 'window dressing'.

The world is experiencing multiple intersecting urgent and existential crises, which have profound and inequitable implications for population health. Arguably, the design of the current, dominant economic system and its antecedents is the root cause of these crises, as it externalises impacts on nature, climate and population health, exacerbates inequalities, and rewards extraction, rent-seeking and social hierarchy. A 'wellbeing economy', which aims to achieve social justice within planetary boundaries, has been proposed as an alternative approach to economic design.

Public health priority setting on a national scale: The Scottish experience.

Objectives: Scotland has the lowest life expectancy in Western Europe and significant health inequalities. A national review of public health in 2015 found that there was a lack of coherent action across organisational boundaries, inhibiting progress. This paper describes a rapid (four-month) systematic approach to prioritisation of Scotland's public health challenges, which was evidence-based, transparent and made use of significant stakeholder engagement.

Trends in psychological distress in Great Britain, 1991-2019: evidence from three representative surveys.

Background: Previously improving UK mortality trends stalled around 2012, with evidence implicating economic policy as the cause. This paper examines whether trends in psychological distress across three population surveys show similar trends.

Methods: We report the percentages reporting psychological distress (4+ in the 12-item General Health Questionnaire) from Understanding Society (Great Britain, 1991-2019), Scottish Health Survey (SHeS, 1995-2019) and Health Survey for England (HSE, 2003-2018) for the population overall, and stratified by sex, age and area deprivation.

The public health implications of the cost-of-living crisis: outlining mechanisms and modelling consequences.

The UK, and other high-income countries, are experiencing substantial increases in living costs. Several overlapping and intersecting economic crises threaten physical and mental health in the immediate and longer term. Policy responses may buffer against the worst effects (e.

How well does the Scottish Index of Multiple Deprivation identify income and employment deprived individuals across the urban-rural spectrum and between local authorities?

Background: Area-based indices of deprivation are used to identify populations at need, to inform service planning and policy, to rank populations for monitoring trends in inequalities, and to evaluate the impacts of interventions. There is scepticism of the utility of area deprivation indices in rural areas because of the spatial heterogeneity of their populations.

Objective: To compare the sensitivity of the Scottish Index of Multiple Deprivation (SIMD) for detecting income and employment deprived individuals by urban-rural classification and across local authorities.

How well do area-based deprivation indices identify income- and employment-deprived individuals across Great Britain today?

Background: Area-based deprivation indices are used in many countries to target interventions and policies to populations with the greatest needs. Analyses of the Carstairs deprivation index applied to postcode sectors in 2001 identified that less than half of all deprived individuals lived in the most deprived areas.

Objective: This article examines the specificity and sensitivity of deprivation indices across Great Britain in identifying individuals claiming income- and employment-related social security benefits.