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33 Mortality amongst street sleeping youth in the UK

The Lancet (1998) 29 August, p 743
  • Daniel Dorling
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Fair play
This chapter is in the book Fair play

Abstract

Sir – Elise Roy and colleagues (July 4, p 32) report on mortality among street youth in Montreal, Canada. They found standardised mortality ratios (SMRs) among street youth aged 14–25 years (n=10) were almost 12 times that of the general population (11·67/1). As is the case in North America, while there is some evidence of the morbidity of the homeless in Britain, little is known about their death rates as compared with the general population. However, a charity for the homeless, Crisis, has published details of deaths among Londoners who were classified as being of no fixed abode on their death certificates, with information on age and sex. From these data it is possible to calculate SMRs for male rough sleepers in London. The number of rough sleepers is taken from the 1991 Census.

There are undoubtedly many difficulties with the reliability of these data; it is impossible to calculate with great accuracy death rates for this indeterminate and mobile population. The results in the table are, however, the first to be calculated for a UK sample, and suggest that the death rates of male rough sleepers aged 16–29 years are almost 40 times those of the general population. For all men aged 16–64 years, this number is about 25 times greater (SMR=2587).

Although it is not surprising that rough sleepers have higher death rates than the general housed population, the magnitude of the difference noted here is startling. In the light of the fact that homelessness seems to be becoming a permanent feature of society, this high rate is cause for grave concern.

Abstract

Sir – Elise Roy and colleagues (July 4, p 32) report on mortality among street youth in Montreal, Canada. They found standardised mortality ratios (SMRs) among street youth aged 14–25 years (n=10) were almost 12 times that of the general population (11·67/1). As is the case in North America, while there is some evidence of the morbidity of the homeless in Britain, little is known about their death rates as compared with the general population. However, a charity for the homeless, Crisis, has published details of deaths among Londoners who were classified as being of no fixed abode on their death certificates, with information on age and sex. From these data it is possible to calculate SMRs for male rough sleepers in London. The number of rough sleepers is taken from the 1991 Census.

There are undoubtedly many difficulties with the reliability of these data; it is impossible to calculate with great accuracy death rates for this indeterminate and mobile population. The results in the table are, however, the first to be calculated for a UK sample, and suggest that the death rates of male rough sleepers aged 16–29 years are almost 40 times those of the general population. For all men aged 16–64 years, this number is about 25 times greater (SMR=2587).

Although it is not surprising that rough sleepers have higher death rates than the general housed population, the magnitude of the difference noted here is startling. In the light of the fact that homelessness seems to be becoming a permanent feature of society, this high rate is cause for grave concern.

Chapters in this book

  1. Front Matter i
  2. Contents v
  3. Sources of extracts vii
  4. Foreword xi
  5. Acknowledgements xiv
  6. Introduction 1
  7. Inequality and poverty
  8. Prime suspect: murder in Britain 13
  9. The dream that turned pear-shaped 31
  10. The soul searching within New Labour 41
  11. Unequal Britain 49
  12. Axing the child poverty measure is wrong 57
  13. Injustice and ideology
  14. Brutal budget to entrench inequality 63
  15. New Labour and inequality: Thatcherism continued? 65
  16. All in the mind? Why social inequalities persist 83
  17. Glass conflict: David Cameron’s claim to understand poverty 93
  18. Clearing the poor away 97
  19. Race and identity
  20. Ghettos in the sky 103
  21. Worlds apart: how inequality breeds fear and prejudice in Britain 111
  22. How much evidence do you need? Ethnicity, harm and crime 115
  23. UK medical school admissions by ethnicity, socioeconomic status, and sex 121
  24. Race and the repercussions of recession 125
  25. Education and hierarchy
  26. What’s it to do with the price of fish? 133
  27. Little progress towards a fairer education system 139
  28. One of Labour’s great successes 147
  29. Do three points make a trend? 149
  30. Educational mobility, England and Germany 155
  31. Cash and the not so classless society 159
  32. Britain must close the great pay divide 165
  33. Raising equality in access to higher education 170
  34. Elitism and geneticism
  35. The Darwins and the Cecils are only empty vessels 189
  36. The Fabian essay: the myth of inherited inequality 193
  37. The return to elitism in education 199
  38. The super-rich are still soaring away 209
  39. Mobility and employment
  40. The trouble with moving upmarket 217
  41. Britain – split and divided by inequality 221
  42. London and the English desert: the grain of truth in a stereotype 225
  43. Are the times changing back? 237
  44. Unemployment and health 243
  45. Bricks and mortar
  46. Mortality amongst street sleeping youth in the UK 249
  47. Daylight robbery: there’s no shortage of housing 251
  48. The influence of selective migration patterns 255
  49. The geography of poverty, inequality and wealth in the UK and abroad 263
  50. All connected? Geographies of race, death, wealth, votes and births 291
  51. Well-being and misery
  52. Against the organization of misery? The Marmot Review of Health Inequalities 299
  53. Inequality kills 307
  54. The geography of social inequality and health 311
  55. The cartographer’s mad project 327
  56. The fading of the dream: widening inequalities in life expectancy in America 333
  57. The importance of circumstance 339
  58. Advocacy and action
  59. Mean machine: how structural inequality makes social inequality seem natural 347
  60. Policing the borders of crime: who decides research? 351
  61. Learning the hard way 357
  62. When the social divide deepens 363
  63. Ending the scandal of complacency 365
  64. Our grandchildren will wonder why we were addicted to social inequality 369
  65. Mind the gap: New Labour’s legacy on child poverty 373
  66. Remapping the world’s population: visualizing data using cartograms 379
  67. If I were king 385
  68. Bibliography 387
  69. Index 389
https://doi.org/10.56687/9781847428813-037

Chapters in this book

  1. Front Matter i
  2. Contents v
  3. Sources of extracts vii
  4. Foreword xi
  5. Acknowledgements xiv
  6. Introduction 1
  7. Inequality and poverty
  8. Prime suspect: murder in Britain 13
  9. The dream that turned pear-shaped 31
  10. The soul searching within New Labour 41
  11. Unequal Britain 49
  12. Axing the child poverty measure is wrong 57
  13. Injustice and ideology
  14. Brutal budget to entrench inequality 63
  15. New Labour and inequality: Thatcherism continued? 65
  16. All in the mind? Why social inequalities persist 83
  17. Glass conflict: David Cameron’s claim to understand poverty 93
  18. Clearing the poor away 97
  19. Race and identity
  20. Ghettos in the sky 103
  21. Worlds apart: how inequality breeds fear and prejudice in Britain 111
  22. How much evidence do you need? Ethnicity, harm and crime 115
  23. UK medical school admissions by ethnicity, socioeconomic status, and sex 121
  24. Race and the repercussions of recession 125
  25. Education and hierarchy
  26. What’s it to do with the price of fish? 133
  27. Little progress towards a fairer education system 139
  28. One of Labour’s great successes 147
  29. Do three points make a trend? 149
  30. Educational mobility, England and Germany 155
  31. Cash and the not so classless society 159
  32. Britain must close the great pay divide 165
  33. Raising equality in access to higher education 170
  34. Elitism and geneticism
  35. The Darwins and the Cecils are only empty vessels 189
  36. The Fabian essay: the myth of inherited inequality 193
  37. The return to elitism in education 199
  38. The super-rich are still soaring away 209
  39. Mobility and employment
  40. The trouble with moving upmarket 217
  41. Britain – split and divided by inequality 221
  42. London and the English desert: the grain of truth in a stereotype 225
  43. Are the times changing back? 237
  44. Unemployment and health 243
  45. Bricks and mortar
  46. Mortality amongst street sleeping youth in the UK 249
  47. Daylight robbery: there’s no shortage of housing 251
  48. The influence of selective migration patterns 255
  49. The geography of poverty, inequality and wealth in the UK and abroad 263
  50. All connected? Geographies of race, death, wealth, votes and births 291
  51. Well-being and misery
  52. Against the organization of misery? The Marmot Review of Health Inequalities 299
  53. Inequality kills 307
  54. The geography of social inequality and health 311
  55. The cartographer’s mad project 327
  56. The fading of the dream: widening inequalities in life expectancy in America 333
  57. The importance of circumstance 339
  58. Advocacy and action
  59. Mean machine: how structural inequality makes social inequality seem natural 347
  60. Policing the borders of crime: who decides research? 351
  61. Learning the hard way 357
  62. When the social divide deepens 363
  63. Ending the scandal of complacency 365
  64. Our grandchildren will wonder why we were addicted to social inequality 369
  65. Mind the gap: New Labour’s legacy on child poverty 373
  66. Remapping the world’s population: visualizing data using cartograms 379
  67. If I were king 385
  68. Bibliography 387
  69. Index 389
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