Newcastle is growing and becoming more diverse, but its people are less healthy and die sooner, new research shows.
In his 2024 annual report the UK’s Chief Medical Officer, Sir Chris Whitty, has investigated health in cities, with Newcastle devoted its own chapter outlining the challenges and ongoing work being done to tackle them.
Cllr Adam Walker, Newcastle City Council’s Cabinet member for adult social care, health and prevention, said: “As Prof. Whitty’s report outlines, cities provide remarkable places in which to live, work, study or enjoy yourself, but can also concentrate some of the major challenges to the health of residents.
“Newcastle has a number of public health issues, but in ensuring our voice is being heard in the corridors of parliament through reports like this, we can begin to seek constructive solutions, with the support of national government.
“As a council we must be brave in supporting of the health of children and vulnerable people, and we must not be afraid to use the levers available to us - through decisions on transport, housing, schooling, food policy, licencing and pollution – to enact positive, substantial, long lasting and evidence-based improvements in the lives of those we serve.
“And as we move into 2025 we look forward to becoming a Marmot City and taking a wider Health in All Policies approach to our services, with a commitment to considering the health impacts of everything we do.”
In his report, Prof. Whitty highlights the need for targeted interventions to achieve the greatest impact.
“Spreading the jam evenly - which is often the easiest way to deliver services - will not get the most effective or efficient outcomes when the potentially avoidable ill health in cities is so heavily concentrated in particular localities and communities,” he said.
Health in Newcastle
As part of his research, Prof. Whitty came to Newcastle in June 2024, where he spoke to local people and visited organisations including Byker Primary School.
The report finds many similarities between Newcastle and other major urban areas, but specifically highlights that the city has:
- a population that is growing, both in number and diversity
- one of the highest numbers of children living in poverty compared to the rest of the UK
- lower life expectancy (the average number of years a person lives) and healthy life expectancy (the number of years a person lives in good health) than the national average
However, the report also details how the council’s public health team is working with other services and partners to try and address these unfair differences, through initiatives like the anti-poverty action plan, health innovation neighbourhood and net zero action plan.
And in spring 2025 the city will begin a new major effort to improve the health and wellbeing of people in Newcastle.
Becoming a Marmot City
Working with University College London (UCL), the council is seeking to become what is known as a Marmot City.
Director of public health for Newcastle and Gateshead, Alice Wiseman, said: “The Marmot principles, which show the link between a fairer society and improved health, very much align with the Council’s priorities of reducing poverty, making sure people reach their potential, that there are good jobs for all, and that we have an environmentally sustainable future.
“With us already seeking to put health at the heart of our decision making through Health in All Policies, and with the greater insight our Health Determinants Research Collaboration project is giving us into the inequalities our communities face, becoming a Marmot City is an opportunity to further embed efforts to ensure the positive wellbeing of our residents in everything we do.”
What are Marmot principles?
The Marmot principles are named after Professor Sir Michael Marmot, who carried out the Government’s Strategic Review of Health Inequalities in England, leading to the 'Fair Society, Healthy Lives' report (also known as the Marmot Review) in 2010; and who went on to found UCL’s Institute of Health Equity (IHE).
There are eight principles, to:
- give every child the best start in life
- enable all children, young people, and adults to maximise their capabilities and have control over their lives
- create fair employment and good work for all
- ensure a healthy standard of living for all
- create and develop healthy and sustainable places and communities
- strengthen the role and impact of ill health prevention
- tackle racism, discrimination, and their outcomes
- pursue environmental sustainability and health equity together
What is a Marmot City?
Across England and Wales more than 40 communities have declared that they are following the Marmot principles.
A number of areas - including Coventry, Greater Manchester, Cheshire and Merseyside, Gwent, Lancashire and Cumbria, Leeds, Luton, the Southwest and Waltham Forest – have gone further, becoming Marmot Places.
Places – also known as a Marmot City when an area is a city - commit to improve health equity over the short, medium and long term by:
- involving communities in identifying what drives poor health, and in creating and implementing actions to reduce them
- ensuring everyone can equitably access the support they need, regardless of their circumstances
- sharing knowledge and best practice with partners both locally and nationally
Why a new approach is needed
In Newcastle, life expectancy and healthy life expectancy are below the national average, with the average age that women and men stop living in good health more than 5 years before the state pensionable age.
That deterioration of health is even earlier for people living in more deprived areas.
Austerity measures, welfare reform, the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic and the cost-of-living crisis have all damaged health and increased the difference in outcomes for people depending on where they live or how much they earn – what are known as health inequalities. The North East has seen the largest increase in these inequalities since 2010.
Benefits of becoming a Marmot City
Evidence from other Marmot Places suggest working towards becoming a Marmot City can lead to reductions in health inequalities.
For example in Coventry the number of young people not in employment, education or training reduced by more than three times the national average, with the percentage of people considered to be living in deprivation also falling.
Read the Chief Medical Officer's report
To read Prof. Whitty's report see: