Implications of child poverty reduction targets for public health and health inequalities in England: a modelling study between 2024 and 2033.

Abstract

Background: We investigated the potential impacts of child poverty (CP) reduction scenarios on population health and health inequalities in England between 2024 and 2033.

Methods: We combined aggregate local authority-level data with published and newly created estimates on the association between CP and the rate per 100 000 of infant mortality, children (aged <16) looked after, child (aged <16) hospitalisations for nutritional anaemia and child (aged <16) all-cause emergency hospital admissions. We modelled relative, absolute (per 100 000) and total (per total population) annual changes for these outcomes under three CP reduction scenarios between 2024 and 2033-low-ambition (15% reduction), medium-ambition (25% reduction) and high-ambition (35% reduction)-compared with a baseline CP scenario (15% increase). Annual changes were aggregated between 2024 and 2033 at national, regional and deprivation (IMD tertiles) levels to investigate inequalities.

Results: All CP reduction scenarios would result in substantial improvements to child health. Meeting the high-ambition reduction would decrease total cases of infant mortality (293; 95% CI 118 to 461), children looked after (4696; 95% CI 1987 to 7593), nutritional anaemia (458, 95% CI 336 to 574) and emergency admissions (32 650; 95% CI 4022 to 61 126) between 2024 and 2033. Northern regions (eg, North East) exhibited the greatest relative and absolute benefit. The most deprived tertile would experience the largest relative, absolute and total benefit; under high-ambition reduction, total infant mortality cases were predicted to fall by 126 (95% CI 51 to 199) in the most deprived tertile compared with 71 (95% CI 29 to 112) in the least between 2024 and 2033.

Conclusions: Achieving reductions in CP could substantially improve child health and reduce health inequalities in England.