Health chief warns of high child poverty rates in NHS Highland area

NHS Highland has warned that more than one in five young children in its area live in poverty, with those in remote and rural communities particularly affected.

Public health director Jennifer Davies said that of its 12,834 under-fives, almost 22% lived in relative poverty.

In a new report, Davies said the "sheer geographic scale" of the area - which covers the Highlands and Argyll and Bute - posed challenges in reaching health services for some families.

She said they could benefit from greater availability of housing, improved transport links and investment in play spaces.

Davies said support for families should also be strengthened to maximise access to childcare, healthy foods and income benefits.

The health chief's report was based on data from 2024. She said the rates of relative poverty had not improved since 2010.

Davies said about half of all children in the NHS Highland area lived in the most "access-deprived" areas of Scotland.

According to her report, the rate of low birth weight babies in the health board region's most deprived areas was more than five times that of the least deprived.

Tooth decay in five-year-olds in the most deprived communities stood at 42.7%, compared with 15.4% in the least deprived.

The report also said childhood vaccination coverage had declined since 2020.

Davies said: "Our region is a beautiful place to grow up, and the vast majority of our children thrive here.

"However, the sheer geographic scale of our region means that for families living in remote and rural communities, simply reaching services can take considerable time, cost and effort."

She added: "These are the daily realities of children's lives, and closing the current poverty gap that affects one in five of our children across Highland is a responsibility we share across the whole system - health, local government, communities and beyond."

It is estimated that, on average, about 220,000 children in Scotland were living in relative poverty over the period from 2021 to 2024, according to figures published last March.

This means they are in a household which has an income less than 60% of the median average for families of the same size across the UK.

Data for the UK as a whole showed that 31% of children were living in relative poverty - up from 30% the previous year.