HEALTH experts from the region say Government targets to reduce health inequalities could give a misleading picture.

The Government wants to improve the health of the poorest people in the fastest way, but experts said its method of measuring progress created an inaccurate picture.

In a paper published in today's British Medical Journal, Dr Allan Low, an independent health economist based in Newcastle, and Anne Low, the director of public health at Derwentside Primary Care Trust, in County Durham, cast doubt on whether the policy was achieving its objectives.

The authors argued that the way health gaps were measured gave a misleading impression.

Dr Low said the current policy resulted in the health of patients in poorer areas improving more slowly than the English average.

Using information on cancer deaths in County Durham and Tees Valley, Dr Low showed that measuring "absolute gaps" between the most deprived and most affluent areas of England gives a false idea of progress.

Dr Low said a hypothetical example might show 200 deaths from cancer per 100,000 disadvantaged people.

This would compare to 100 deaths per 100,000 people in the population as a whole, creating an absolute gap of 100.

Over time, the death rate would drop by ten per cent for both groups, meaning there were 180 deaths per 100,000 among the disadvantaged group and 90 per 100,000 among the country as a whole.

Dr Low said: "This shows that there has been no faster rate of improvement for the disadvantaged group. In both groups, there has been a ten per cent drop.

"The relative gap has, therefore, stayed the same, but the absolute gap has gone down from 100 to 90.

"The Government reports that there has been a reduction in the absolute gap and says they have improved the health of the poorest group of people fastest.

"But that is simply not true. They say they are making encouraging progress because the absolute gap has narrowed but, in fact, the relative gap has not narrowed.

"It is the relative gap that is important - that is the way of measuring the way you are making progress in improving the health of the poorest fastest."