Cara Leavey

Intersectional Inequalities in Neighbourhood Air Pollution Concentration in England: A Quantitative Analysis of Ecological Data Using Eco-Intersectional Multilevel (EIM) Modelling - Applied Spatial An... Applied Spatial Analysis and Policy - Air pollution is detrimentally associated with many health outcomes, yet its impacts are not equally distributed. Research consistently finds inequalities by...

📢 New paper! We examine intersectional inequalities in neighbourhood air pollution concentration by area deprivation, ethnicity, education, rurality and age. We find evidence of patterns of inequality which depart from an additive framework link.springer.com/article/10.1...

Disabled people could face benefit cuts – even if they cannot work Long-term claimants of employment and support allowance could be moved over to a new, time-limited disability benefit – equating to cuts.

NEW: Planned welfare reform could see big benefit cuts for disabled people who can't work, Citizens Advice has warned

The government wants to replace long-term ESA disability benefits with a new, much more time-limited benefit called Unemployment Insurance (UI) www.bigissue.com/news/social-...

Attention is on NEETs today, but the problem is much worse.

NEETs include stay-at-home parents & jobseekers.

Strip those out to focus on people not working, not seeking work, not in education & not parenting: this group of economically & socially dislocated young adults has *doubled* in a decade.

“Take away the greed of the private landlord housing market… because that is killing people”: Examining the political economy of housing and health inequalities in four English coastal towns. Health inequalities are the avoidable and unjust differences in health that arise from how society and the economy are structured. These inequalities …

It is so great to see this paper by @drvicmcgowan.bsky.social out at last - a much needed political economy lens to the issue of housing and its impact on health. Stories of disrepair, insecurity and homelessness, all in service of wealth extraction. www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...

How Reeves could save £12bn without cutting disability benefits Billions could be recouped by the Treasury by offering careers support for the disabled

Welcome intervention, commissioned by @debbieabrahamsmp.bsky.social's Work and Pensions Select Committee, to demonstrate that better employment support for disabled people could generate significant fiscal savings, without needing to rely on crude cuts to benefits inews.co.uk/news/politic...

LSE Collaborative Studentship with Trades Union Congress LSE Collaborative Studentship with Trades Union Congress

If you know someone who is thinking about doing a PhD and who is interested in health then please share this advert with them. It is an ESRC funded PhD working on trade unions and health as part of a collaboration with me and the @tuc.org.uk @lsesociology.bsky.social www.lse.ac.uk/study-at-lse...

New annual report from @scothealtheq.bsky.social just launched - as well as providing an update on key stats + qualitative insights on socioeconomic drivers of health inequalities, report places spotlight on preventable deaths from drugs, alcohol & suicide scothealthequity.org/2025-inequal... 1/3

Mental health problems are real. But they’re rarely people’s only barrier to work. People with experience of mental distress describe a wide range of social, economic, relational and structural barriers to work – in addition to the challenges posed by symptoms. It’s more than a mental health issue 🧵

Lovely few days at @easp-spa-2025.bsky.social, so good that my only pics are some bunnies playing in the sun. Ending with a great session presenting some of my PhD research on work in deindustrialised communities (thank you @sionedps.bsky.social for chairing!)

As mentioned in the welfare bill amendment, the Government has not yet published any analysis on the employment effects of its benefit cuts.

Here at @resfoundation.bsky.social, we gave it a go last month...

Here’s the story - the amendment will be published later this evening but expect more names to be added in the coming days

www.theguardian.com/politics/202...

Medicalisation of public health: a narrative review To critically examine the medicalisation of public health and its implications for addressing upstream social, environmental, and structural determina…

www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...

Medicalisation of public health: a narrative review

Yep

This stuff matters enormously

The medicalization of population health policy is a significant risk to, well, health

Read alongside Lantz
pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/37096631/

The government has introduced legislation today to implement cuts to disability & health benefits

There have been no substantial concessions on how the proposals were originally presented in the Green Paper

Here is what we know about the impact these cuts will have... 🧵

Clip from the times Monday 19 May with headline “fewer than 100,000 will find work through Labour jobs scheme”

The government says its cuts to disability benefits are part of a “moral mission” to get more people working.

But analysis shows fewer than 100,00 are expected to start work by the end of the parliament.

Meanwhile around 3m will have disability & health related benefits cut. 1/4

Disability benefit cuts to hit 700,000 families already in poverty, DWP forecasts show Internal government forecasts obtained by the Guardian reveal ‘truly shocking’ effects of planned cuts

NEW: Internal DWP figures show 700,000 families *already* in poverty are forecast to be hit by planned disability benefit cuts

That's on top of the 250k+ who are predicted to be newly pushed into poverty by the changes

By me, for the Guardian:
www.theguardian.com/society/2025...

On Friday afternoon, the Govt published the evidence pack for its Pathways to Work Green Paper.

It confirms that the Govt's PIP cut will hit older people hardest, despite all the rhetoric about focusing on 'snowflake' young people.

A quick thread...

“And Breathe Normally”: Impacts of low emission zones on sick leave and mental well-being Air pollution poses a global concern due to its detrimental effects on climate, healthcare, and human capital accumulation. However, there is limited …

📢A new study from @uniofbath.bsky.social shows London's low emissions zones have had major benefits for human health and the economy, with a 10.2% decrease in respiratory issues following LEZ implementation, an **18.5%** reduction in sick leave, and annual public health savings of over £37 million.

Text from OBR document: Labour supply impact of Spring Statement welfare and employment support measures: We have not made a comprehensive assessment of the labour supply impacts of those elements of the Green Paper that we have incorporated into the fiscal forecast. The individual measures’ labour market impacts are complex to assess and would have interacting effects. The Government did not provide us with a comprehensive and robust analysis of these potential effects, and we were not, in the very limited time available, able to develop our own analysis of their net impact on labour supply. In addition, some of the wider Green Paper reforms set out above, which are not included in the fiscal forecast, could also have labour market implications. We will make a full assessment of the Green Paper policies’ effects ahead of our next forecast

The OBR has not yet been able to forecast any employment gain from the cuts/changes to incapacity & disability benefits

MPs are being asked to support around £6.5bn of cuts & increased conditionality for ill & disabled people without any clear assessment of what it will achieve

A chart showing monthly income after housing cost (AHC) in 2029/30 before and after proposed changes for new claimants. It shows that a single person losing PIP daily living and LCWRA could lose £818 per month which is 58% of their income. This is based off modelling of a single person over 25, unable to work due to disability/health conditions. Under existing rules they would be eligible for Universal Credit (UC) Limited Capability for Work-Related Activity (LCWRA), Personal Independence Payments (PIP) standard daily living, PIP standard mobility. Under proposed reforms they would lose UC LCWRA and PIP daily living.

Last week the government proposed cuts to disability and long-term sickness benefits.

These cuts will leave some disabled people significantly worse off.

📢 By 2029/30, someone that loses PIP daily living and LCWRA will be over £800 per month worse off 1/4

Turning on the lights is a luxury in my family. These benefit changes will push us even closer to the edge | Brian For years we have cut back, and back again. My benefits will now be frozen, but there’s nothing left to sacrifice, says Brian, a Changing Realities participant

'I was one of a group of parents living in poverty who met with members of the government in Downing Street last year to push for changes to this broken system. I worry now that our pleas for change have been ignored."

Brian on green paper in @theguardian.com www.theguardian.com/commentisfre...

Powerful article for @lbc.co.uk from disabled mum of 3.
Keir Starmer & Rachel Reeves need to read this before pressing ahead with huge cuts to disability benefits.

"The thought of my disability benefits being cut is keeping me up at night. There is nothing left for me to cut." 1/3
t.co/BJQ6WZshPh

Various indicators point to a deterioration in population mental health – likely contributing to rising disability benefit caseloads | Institute for Fiscal Studies Mental health has worsened since the pandemic. This is consistent with rising disability benefit claims for mental health.

A few months ago the FT suggested the surge in disability benefit claims may not have been driven by an actual rise in illness/disability, having found limited evidence for such a rise since the pandemic

Now the IFS has published research suggesting there has been a rise ifs.org.uk/news/various...

Cutting PIP quite simply means harming people's welfare. The evidence is clearly there that Disabled people face higher living costs, and PIP helps alleviate that. It's got nothing to do with work. For example, from CASE 20 years ago: sticerd.lse.ac.uk/case/_new/pu...

Looking ahead to the disability benefits green paper, this essay for @citizensadvice.bsky.social makes the case for a system focused on improving health outcomes.

Co-authors @maddyirose.bsky.social, @victoria-anns.bsky.social & Simon Collerton

We challenge the 5 big falsehoods underpinning cuts…🧵

📣📣📣

Absolutely fabulous job opportunity @healthfoundation.bsky.social for a Public Health Consultant with the drive to improve health and reduce inequalities through transforming prevention policy - in its broadest sense - across the UK!

Please share ☺️

lde.tbe.taleo.net/lde01/ats/ca...

Read about our “game changer” for an Institute for Preventative Health based in the North 👇 announced today

Thanks to all who joined our symposium on deindustrialisation and health this week - particular thanks to @gscheiring.bsky.social for such a fascinating keynote that brought so many aspects of the day together.

Looking forward to developing some of these ideas further! @drmcnamara.bsky.social

Changes in unemployment and permanent sickness in England’s East Midlands coalfields, 1971–2011 The UK coal industry was an important part of the economy, but it experienced substantial job losses during the 1980s and 1990s. To alleviate the resulting socio-economic problems, many areas recei...

Thank you! Hoping to explore some of that double edge too - we have a great paper from Prof Danielle Sinnett (and @pdqnorman.bsky.social) which considers those lingering adverse health effects from coalfields www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10....