Catherine Conlon: Budget will help ease health inequality but only as a first step

Improved access to health, childcare and education, but issues such as wealth tax and supports to facilitate healthy diets and challenge the obesity epidemic were not addressed

Where you live, work and play have a huge impact on the risk of developing obesity. Safefood research in 2020 showed that low-income households need to spend up to a third (35%) of their income to buy the minimum essentials for a healthy food basket.

Significant inequalities in mortality in Ireland were identified in an ESRI report, published this month.

The standardised mortality rate — mortality differences that are not explained by differences in age and sex — was twice as high in the least advantaged tranche of society compared to mortality for those in the most advantaged group in 2018, and substantially lower in non-white Irish ethnic groups.