In the UK, this understanding of health inequalities dates back to 1980, when the Department of Health and Social Security published its Report of the Working Group on Inequalities in Health. The Black Report, as it became known (after its chairman, Sir Douglas Black of the Royal College of Physicians), systematically collated all the available data on socioeconomic status and health outcomes. Men in the lowest socioeconomic group, it turned out, were dying at a rate twice that of men in the highest, and the gap was growing, despite the establishment of the National Health Service. Prime Minister James Callaghan’s Labour government commissioned the Black Report in 1977, but by the time it was published, Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher’s new Conservative government was in power. According to the British Medical Journal, in its 2002 obituary for Black, “The Black report was not to Mrs. Thatcher’s liking and was never printed; instead, 260 photocopies were distributed in a half-hearted fashion on Bank Holiday Monday.” Since then we’ve had other, government-commissioned, UK commissions reporting on health inequalities

Fig 1 Infant mortality rate (95% confidence interval) by socioeconomic classification, 2008-15. Fig 1 Infant mortality rate (95% confidence interval) by socioeconomic classification, 2008-15. Source: Office for National Statistics. NS-SEC=National statistics socioeconomic classification, based on new Standard Occupational Classification (SOC2010) since 2011. Child mortality data and birth statistics used father’s NS-SEC until 2011 and combined parents NS-SEC from 2012. For this analysis we grouped mortality rates for joint registrations by NS-SEC into three groups: professional (1, 1.1, 1.2, 2), intermediate (3,4), and manual (5 and below, including unclassified)2 David Taylor-Robinson, and Ben Barr BMJ 2017;357:bmj.j2258 ©2017 by British Medical Journal Publishing Group

Just last year's increased wealth gained by UK's richest 1000 would pay the adult social care bill for 4 years