UK Child Death Rates Fall More Slowly Than In 20 Other Countries

STOCKPORT, U.K. - June 19, 2014 - PRLog -- News that child death rates in Britain have fallen much more slowly than in 20 other countries in the European Union, Australia and Canada was described as “extremely worrying” by a spokesman for leading children’s charity Action for Sick Children.

Research carried out by Professor Russell Viner from the University College London's  Institute of Child Health looked at changes in all-cause mortality for children and young people between 1970 and 2008 and found that the UK’s performance had plunged from the top quartile to the bottom quartile of the group over the intervening 38 years.

“We need to investigate our failure to match the gains in reducing deaths among children and young people that other countries have achieved,” added the spokesman. “We need to know why we are not matching their success and act accordingly.”

The findings, which were published in the Lancet, revealed that only for injury-related deaths has the UK remained in the best quartile over the past 38 years for most age groups.

The UK performance for deaths in infants (younger than 1 year) and children aged 1-9 years has been particularly poor, with an estimated 1035 excess deaths annually for infants in the UK compared with the European average by 2008.

For further information click onto: www.actionforsickchildren.org.uk