Press Release: ‘It will make health inequalities worse’

‘It will make health inequalities worse’: new research shows impact of climate change and nature loss on people in poverty and poor health

Researchers at think tank NPC have collected evidence of the ways that the UK’s poorest and least well households will be affected by environmental crises – and the government’s policy responses to them.

The impacts of climate change and nature loss on people living in poverty include:

• Being unable to afford adaptations to their housing in reaction to a changing climate, such as installing insulation or preventing mould.
• Being unable to afford to stay cool in heatwaves e.g. electricity costs (fans or lights if the blinds are closed to keep the sun out) and travel costs to get to public green spaces.
• Being more likely to experience floods: low-income households are eight times more likely to live on a floodplain. And the average cost of being flooded is an estimated £50,000 per home.

Researchers have highlighted the close links between poor health and poverty, inequality, and exclusion:

• People living in poverty are more likely to have long-term health conditions, and tend to develop multiple long-term conditions 10-15 years earlier than people in more affluent areas.
• The research also highlights the often forgotten impacts on groups subject to the greatest health inequalities like refugees, prisoners, the homeless, and traveller communities.

The impacts on people with long-term health conditions include finding it harder to stay cool in more heatwaves. For example, many life-saving drugs make it harder for your body to regulate temperature.

It’s not just facing more of the negative impacts. NPC warns that people in poverty and poor health aren’t benefitting as much as they could from Government environmental policies. For example:

• They have less access to green spaces, even though evidence shows the benefits are stronger for people on low incomes – it can reduce inequality in mental wellbeing by 40%.
• Insulation schemes are not covering enough rented housing, so the poorest miss out on lower energy bills.
• Subsidies for installing solar panels and heat pumps have likely gone to more wealthy households, rather than those on the lowest incomes.

The briefings are part of NPC’s Everyone’s Environment programme–a group of over 70 charities that focuses on the impact of environmental crises on people’s lives. They have previously looked into how climate change and nature loss is affecting young people, Disabled people and older people, and people from ethnic minority communities.

Leah Davis, Head of Policy at NPC said:

Climate change and nature loss are affecting people’s lives today – it’s not just a problem for the future. And sadly, we see again and again that the environmental crises are affecting people living in poverty and living with long-term health conditions the most.

Quite simply, environmental change will make health inequalities worse – and create new ones.

We hope that these briefings can be a vital resource for charities, policymakers, and other researchers to be able to point to the specific impacts that climate change and nature loss are having on people’s lives.