Findings from Department of Health and Social Care Provide New Insights into Managed Care (Small Numbers, Big Impact: Making a Utilitarian Case for the Contribution of Inclusion Health To Population Health In England): Managed Care

2023 OCT 23 (NewsRx) -- By a News Reporter-Staff News Editor at Insurance Daily News -- A new study on Managed Care is now available. According to news reporting out of London, United Kingdom, by NewsRx editors, research stated, “Inclusion health groups make up a small proportion of the general population, so despite the extreme social exclusion and poor health outcomes that these groups experience, they are often overlooked in public health investment and policy development. In this paper, we demonstrate that a utilitarian argument can be made for investment in better support for inclusion health groups despite their small size.”

Our news journalists obtained a quote from the research from the Department of Health and Social Care, “That is, by preventing social exclusion, there is the potential for large aggregate health benefits to the whole population. We illustrate this by reframing existing published mortality estimates into population attributable fractions to show that 12% of all-cause premature deaths (95% CI 10.03% to 14.29%) are attributable to the circumstances of people who experience homelessness, use drugs and/or have been in prison. We also show that a large proportion of cause-specific premature deaths in the general population can be attributed to specific inclusion health groups, such as 43% of deaths due to viral hepatitis (95% CI 30.35% to 56.61%) and nearly 4000 deaths due to cancer (3844, 95% CI 3438 to 4285) between 2013 and 2021 attributed to individuals who use illicit opioids. Considering the complexity of the inclusion health policy context and the sparseness of evidence, we discuss how a shift in policy framing from ‘inclusion health vs the rest of the population’ to ‘the impact of social exclusion on broader population health’ makes a better case for increased policy attention and investment in inclusion health.”

According to the news editors, the research concluded: “We discuss the strengths and limitations of this approach and how it can be applied to public health policy, resource prioritisation and future research.”

This research has been peer-reviewed.

For more information on this research see: Small Numbers, Big Impact: Making a Utilitarian Case for the Contribution of Inclusion Health To Population Health In England. Journal of Epidemiology and Community Health, 2023. Journal of Epidemiology and Community Health can be contacted at: Bmj Publishing Group, British Med Assoc House, Tavistock Square, London WC1H 9JR, England. (BMJ Publishing Group - http://group.bmj.com/; Journal of Epidemiology and Community Health - http://jech.bmj.com/)

Our news journalists report that additional information may be obtained by contacting Claire X. Zhang, Dept. of Health and Social Care, Off Hlth Improvement & Dispar, Addict & Inclus Directorate, London, United Kingdom. Additional authors for this research include Carlotta Cornaglia, Peta Trussell, Charlotte Lillford-Wildman, Joanna Castle, Jake Gommon, Ines Campos-Matos, Robert W. Aldridge, Dan Lewer and Andrew C. Hayward.

The direct object identifier (DOI) for that additional information is: https://doi.org/10.1136/jech-2023-220849. This DOI is a link to an online electronic document that is either free or for purchase, and can be your direct source for a journal article and its citation.

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