2. Recommendations on how to improve the lives of those living in deprived areas

We recommend that services and other resources will be focussed on the areas of greatest need:

• We need to jointly address all areas of social deprivation: income, health, employment, barriers to housing and services, living environment, education and crime.
• We recommend targeting the specific causes of death which most contribute to our inequalities in life expectancy. For example, uptake of cancer screening should be very strongly encouraged in deprived areas. Additional efforts should be made in these areas to improve heart disease and stroke prevention, reduce accidents and improve respiratory health.