Relationship between living standards and health
About 2 mins
Key points
- People who report their health is fair, bad or very bad (less than good) are often more than twice as likely to be unable to afford items that contribute to a good standard of living.
- People in less than good health are least able to afford a holiday once a year and to save at least £10 a month. These items are associated with a good standard of living.
Money and resources can affect health in a number of ways. People need a certain level of income to be able to afford the basics for a healthy life, such as food and quality housing. Higher incomes enable people to have more choice, and this often means they have access to healthier options.
The chart shows the proportion of working-age adults (aged 16–64 years) who are unable to afford different essential items and services, which are used to form a measure of poverty called material deprivation. The data is divided into people who report ‘good’ health and people who report ‘less than good’ health (on a scale of ‘very good, ‘good’, ‘fair’, ‘bad’ and ‘very bad’).
- The items that people in both ‘good’ and ‘less than good’ health can most often not afford are a holiday once a year and saving at least £10 a month.
- Nearly all of these indicators of material deprivation are at least twice as likely to affect people with less than good health than people in good health.
- The biggest proportional difference is for people not being able to afford to keep their accommodation warm. A total of 19.2% of people in less than good health cannot afford to keep their accommodation warm, which is almost three times higher than the proportion of people reporting good health who cannot afford it (6.7%).
- People in poor health are twice as likely to be unable to afford to save at least £10 a month (36.1% versus 17.9%).
- Self-rated health is a measure of health from the Family Resources Survey based on a five-point scale from ‘very good’ to ‘very bad’. Other options include ‘good’, ‘fair’ and ‘bad’.
- These individual responses are taken from a broader measure of material deprivation, which is defined as a situation in which people lack a range of necessities because they cannot afford them.
Source: Department for Work and Pensions, Family Resources Survey, UK, 2023/24
