If only the people at The Guardian could actually read
We’re told that:
More than 330,000 excess deaths in Great Britain in recent years can be attributed to spending cuts to public services and benefits introduced by a UK government pursuing austerity policies, according to an academic study.
No, this study did not find that. This study assumed that:
There is clear evidence of adverse changes to mortality rates in the UK from the early 2010s onwards: a slow-down in the rate of improvement overall, alongside increasing death rates among more socioeconomically deprived populations; inequalities have widened considerably as a consequence of the latter.1–9 These changes predate the COVID-19 pandemic and are important context for understanding the scale of pandemic-related inequalities.10 11
Although a number of different contributory factors were initially proposed, a considerable body of evidence now demonstrates that UK Government’s ‘austerity’ policies are the main cause of these pre-pandemic changes.12–17 This includes a recently published, large-scale, critical assessment of all the relevant evidence.18 Such policies—introduced from 2010 onwards, and following ‘the great recession’ of 2008—have removed billions of pounds from both social security and vital services, and have thus particularly impacted on poorer, more vulnerable, populations.10 15 18 Similar adverse effects of austerity measures on population health have been seen in other high-income countries.
This specific paper assumes that changes in mortality stem from “austerity”. The actual thing the paper is trying to look at is whether there is a gender aspect to this - the answer there being “dunno”.
A little memo to Guardian journalists. There’s a difference between finding that and assuming that. Quite a large one in fact.
It’s also possible to wonder about the assumption of course. For here’s the base idea:
Trends in age-standardised mortality rates were calculated, and segmented regression analyses used to identify break points between 1981 and 2019. Excess deaths were calculated for 2012–2019 based on comparison of observed deaths with numbers predicted by the linear trend for 1981–2011.
The claim is a link between government spending and mortality - or age of mortality perhaps. So, as this shows, govt spending as a percentage of GDP fell during the 80s, was low during the 90s, rose in the 00s and that much vaunted “austerity” didn’t lower it back down to the levels of the 90s and early 00s.
A link between government spending and mortality should therefore show the same sort of shape. It doesn’t. Thus the assumption that any change in mortality more recently is linked to the same changes in govt spending as a percentage of GDP is, umm, somewhat suspect, no?
But then asking journalists to understand the numbers behind politically convenient journal papers is asking too much, isn’t it?