British society is among the world’s most harmful to its citizens

Political policies including austerity measures have turned Britain into one of the world’s most harmful societies to its own citizens.

Choices made by politicians in Britain have led to an increase in preventable injuries and deaths, according to new research from the University of Birmingham.

Alongside the U.S. and Australia, Britain is one of the world’s most harmful societies, according the University’s Dr Simon Pemberton.

Dr Pemberton said: ‘Every year, thousands of adults and children in the UK die or are injured as a result of preventable events.

‘For example, more than 18,000 people in England and Wales die because of the effects of winter, while 29,000 lives are ended prematurely from air pollution and 13,000 people across Britain die from lung disease or cancers contracted via the workplace.

A new book, Harmful Societies, by Dr Pemberton, an expert on social harm – defined as the avoidable injuries caused by the way a society is organised – looks at measures such as suicide, road traffic accidents, obesity, poverty and unemployment across 31 Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) countries.

Liberal societies such as the UK, US and Australia are among the most harmful to their citizens, and the austerity programmes unfolding across Europe are likely to increase the ‘social harms’ experienced by people in those countries, Pemberton says.

Dr Pemberton says, ‘Far from being inevitable events, such social harms are the result of the way we choose to organise our societies. There is no “natural” rate of death from the cold, road traffic injuries or obesity, nor are there natural rates of poverty, financial insecurity or social isolation.

‘In close proximity to the United Kingdom, there are countries that are much better than our own at preventing premature death and other harms. This research challenges politicians and their advisers to learn lessons from similarly-placed countries so that practical policies can be developed to reduce unnecessary and preventable harms.’

http://metro.co.uk/2015/03/18/british-society-is-among-the-worlds-most-harmful-to-its-citizens-5108796/

Are they having a bubble bath?
Seriously, never laughed at such idiotic methodology behind this.
What a twat, I suggest he look at real life dangers to societies where countless people die not make claims which he is suggesting have a connection.
Seriously twats like this is what is wrong with society.

He ought to go to Syria or Iraq and see what preventable deaths really mean.

I think you are missing the point Nicko.   The preventable deaths spoken about here are those caused by the way we live and can be changed if we have the will to do so and are civil matters.

For example, although I live right on the edge of a market town, and the other side of the road behind the houses is water meadows, the actual road area itself turns out to be one of the most polluted in the county, because it is used as a throughway for lorries etc.   I didn't know this when we moved in.  Last year I got a chest infection very badly, the doctor said that living on this particular road probably made it a lot worse.   Hopefully, we are going to be able to get changes in routes to make it better.    That's the kind of thing being discussed on the OP.

nicko wrote:He ought to go to Syria or Iraq and see what preventable deaths really mean.

Sadly Sassy is very clueless as this person is trying to correlate aspects in life to suicide based off things like unemployement, in otherwords he is guessing and even then his maths is shockingly crap.
If we just went on this alone on unemployemnt and suicide rates in the EU alone it would show he is clueless this guy Nicko