Ireland has the second-highest rate of poverty among older people in the EU, a conference on health inequalities has been told.
Some 40 per cent of over-65s are at risk of poverty, higher than in any other of the 25 EU member states apart from Cyprus, Dr Kevin Kelleher, assistant national director for health protection with the HSE, said yesterday.
People living in poverty in Ireland can expect to die seven years younger than their wealthier neighbours, the conference on "Tackling Poverty and Health Inequalities" also heard.
Citing new research carried out for the European Commission, Dr Kelleher pointed out that the situation for Irish women aged 75 and over was even worse, with almost two out of three in this category at risk of poverty.
"The fundamental issue in relation to poor health is income; if you don't have that, you're never going to be healthy again," Dr Kelleher told the conference, organised by the Combat Poverty Agency and the Institute of Public Health in Ireland.
One in six pensioners in the EU is at risk of poverty, and the problem is twice as bad in the "old" EU states as in the newer members from eastern Europe, according to the report by the European Centre for Social Welfare Policy and Research. In Ireland, the elderly are twice as likely to be at risk of poverty as the rest of the adult population.
Poverty is defined here as earning less than 60 per cent of the median income in a country.
Dr Kelleher pointed out that Ireland has relatively few old people - fewer than 12 per cent of the population, compared to 20 per cent in northern Europe. "We have, therefore, 20 to 30 years before the elderly population peaks and [ we have] that time to ensure the elderly of the future will be healthy."
The other area of the population requiring health intervention was the under-fives. "If we don't do this, we're going to have major problems into the future."
Dr Jane Wilde, director of the Institute of Public Health in Ireland, said that in addition to the seven-year difference in life expectancy between the poor and the more prosperous, wealth-related gaps were evident for all common illnesses, quality of life measures and rates of disability,
"These health inequalities are systematic, unjust and unfair, and they can definitely be changed. Tackling health inequality is one of the most important things we can do to improve general health."
Dr Cecily Kelleher, head of the school of public health and population science in UCD, stressed the importance of early intervention in influencing people's health. "The earlier you can intervene the better from a health point of view, with the best return obtained with pre-school children."
The single most important thing the Government could do to improve health would be to provide a comprehensive mother and child care system, she said.
In the past, traditional, often rural networks of support helped to alleviate the health effects of material poverty, but this cushioning effect was being lost as society became more urbanised and ghettoised. However, public policies such as integration and decentralisation could mitigate this effect.
Dr Kelleher said a study of more than 1,000 Irish children born between 2001 and 2004 had found that mothers' health is closely linked to income levels, whether the woman has a medical card and is married or not, and the education levels of the child's grandmother.
