Report shows massive gap in life expectancy between richest and poorest parts of Doncaster

A health report seen by councillors show men living in more deprived parts of Doncaster are likely to die 10 years earlier than those in the most affluent areas. For women, it's 7.8 years,

The average life expectancy for men in Doncaster is 77.9 years while women live on average to 81.9 years.

Documents show while there has been some improvements in Doncaster men's healthy life expectancy, the levels of inequalities in mortality rates appear to be widening, particularly in women.

Dr Rupert Suckling, Doncaster Council’s director of public health said the life expectancy rates is most affected by three factors.

He said: “It’s driven largely by mortality and deaths - deaths in older people, particularly those between the ages of 60 and 70 related to cancer and cardiovascular disease.

“The second group of deaths that people are seeing more of is suicide, drug related deaths and those from violence.

“There aren’t many of these but the tragic case of Doncaster boxer Tom Bell - you don’t need many sad cases like these to make a big impact on that figure.

“Doncaster traditionally has very low deaths in this but it has been increasing over time.”

Dr Sucking said infant mortality was also factor in the figures adding the council and partners are working on schemes to promote safe sleeping and smoking cessation.

“Another aspect is infant mortality so as we are getting better at keeping small babies alive which is great, but we still see quite a lot of deaths in that group which is recorded as children in the first 12 months of life.

“This is from premature deaths and we see a lot in this group under the sudden and unexplained category

“These are things that are happening nationally and we believe they are impacting locally here as well.”