full report accessible via BBC2 Newsnight website: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/programmes/newsnight/6359161.stm http://www.unicef-icdc.org/ The report on Britain's children makes grim reading Britain's children are unhappier and feel less loved than those in almost any of the world's wealthiest nations, according to a Unicef report. Unicef considered six factors crucial to children's lives: material well-being; health and safety; education; family and peer relationships; behaviour and risks; and subjective well-being. Overall the Netherlands fares best, ranking in the top ten for all six critera. Britain and America come in the bottom third in five of the six categories, ranking well behind the likes of Greece, Poland and the Czech Republic. The report, revealed exclusively on Newsnight, draws on data from existing studies by the World Health Organisation and the OECD. Grim reading The report makes grim reading, suggesting that growing up in Britain may leave children disadvantaged not because the country is materially poor but because of "relative income poverty" - the large disparity in wealth between the nation's poorest and the rest. Only in the United States is the gap wider. Scandinavia has the lowest rate of relative income poverty. According to Manu Vatish, consultant obstetrician at University Hospital, Coventry, this is an obvious sign of deprivation. "It continues throughout their childhood. It will lead them into adolescence, it will alter their job prospects and then they'll continue in a cycle of deprivation into the next generation," he says. Drink and drugs But the American dream lives on: children in the US are the most ambitious, whereas in the UK, one third expect to find no better than unskilled work. When it comes to sex, drugs and drink, Britain's teenagers are the worst abusers. Fewer than a tenth of French 11 to 15 year olds, compared to a third of the UK's, say they've been drunk at least twice. As for drugs, only Swiss and Canadian teenagers have used cannabis more frequently than the British. Nearly 40% of British 15 year olds say they have had sex - far more than the next most sexually precocious, the Germans and the Swedes where the figure is below 30%. Family Britain has the second highest incidence of young people living in single parent families. Almost 17%compared to just 7% in Italy and 9% in Belgium. And Britain comes bottom in family and peer relationships and in how young people feel about themselves. In Switzerland over 80% of youngsters find their peers kind and helpful. From Portugal to Germany and Scandinavia well over 70% do likewise. But in Britain the figure is a dismal 43% ------------------- Problems/Questions? Send it to Listserv owner: [log in to unmask] To unsubscribe, send the following message in the text section -- NOT the subject header -- to [log in to unmask] SIGNOFF SDOH DO NOT SEND IT BY HITTING THE REPLY BUTTON. THIS SENDS THE MESSAGE TO THE ENTIRE LISTSERV AND STILL DOES NOT REMOVE YOU. To subscribe to the SDOH list, send the following message to [log in to unmask] in the text section, NOT in the subject header. SUBSCRIBE SDOH yourfirstname yourlastname To post a message to all 1200+ subscribers, send it to [log in to unmask] Include in the Subject, its content, and location and date, if relevant. For a list of SDOH members, send a request to [log in to unmask] To receive messages only once a day, send the following message to [log in to unmask] SET SDOH DIGEST To view the SDOH archives, go to: https://listserv.yorku.ca/archives/sdoh.html