Marmot Review & Black Report Comparison

The Marmot Review and the Black Report are very similar in their aims; The Black Report was written by Sir Douglas Black and was published by the Department of Health & Social Security in 1980 and commissioned by Health Minister, David Ennals of the previous labour government in 1977, in an attempt to show exactly how ill health and death are both distributed among the population in what Black suggests is an unequal manner between social classes. The Marmot review, written by Professor Sir Michael Marmot, however, was not published until 2010 by University College London, and commissioned by the Secretary of State for Health, Alan Johnson in 2008. Similarly to the Black Report, the Marmot Review looks at how essentially, the lower a person's social class, the worse said individual's health is.
The Black Report suggests that health inequalities have been growing more so since the establishment of the National Health Service in 1948. Black also suggested that these inequalities were due to factors such as education, income, housing, diet, employment and the working conditions of individuals, which is similar to what Marmot implies within the Marmot Review however the review was written with six objectives: To provide all children, young people and adults with the resources and help to maximise their capabilities and for them to have control over their own lives, to create employment and suitable work for everyone, ensure that everyone has a healthy standard of living, to create equality within communities and social classes and to strengthen the impact of illness prevention. The Black Report was written to actually combat these inequalities by looking directly at the inequalities that still exist despite the National Health Service being in place, the differences in social classes and the use of medical services, infant mortality rates within social classes and also life expectancy. Black found that there was explanations for these health inequalities. The