Health, wealth and happiness are the traditional New Year's toast. The second two obviously depend heavily on the first.
However, there is a tendency among economists to view human health and well-being as a cost, when it should be the goal of a civilized society.
That's the context in which many of us are embarking on short-term exercise regimes in January – and growing health inequalities and an aging population make this a huge challenge for politicians and businesspeople.
There are reasons for hope, but it would be pointless to deny the scale of the problems. It's no secret that the better off you are, the healthier you are likely to be.
Huge challenges: the better off you are, the healthier you are likely to be
But according to Professor Michael Marmot, who published a 2010 report on the health gaps between rich and poor, the gap in Britain is only widening.
Legal & General, which has a partnership with Professor Marmot, estimates the gap between rich and poor in healthy life expectancy in Britain at almost 20 years.
Those in the most deprived areas not only live shorter lives, but also spend almost a third of their lives in poor health.
L&G also estimates that health inequalities lead to productivity losses of between £31 and 33 billion per year in England alone.
Life expectancy, which had been increasing, is declining: until 2010 it had increased by about a year every four years.
Ten years later, this had shrunk by 0.9 years in women and 1.2 years in men. At the other end of the age spectrum, Prof Marmot points out that children in Britain are becoming increasingly shorter.
Five-year-olds here, he says, are generally seven centimeters shorter than in the Netherlands.
In terms of the working-age population, approximately 2.6 million people aged 16 to 64 – or more than one in five of the working population – are economically inactive due to long-term illness.
This is an increase from 2.35 million at the beginning of 2022. There is clearly a need for more efforts to help people with long-term illness return to work.
Ministers are launching a 'WorkWell' program to reduce the number of rejected applications, which is a start. Not everyone can return to the labor market, but some can find their way back with the right guidance.
The role of business is to provide rewarding and safe employment, plus health benefits, for their workforce.
The NHS, which is woven into our national identity, has a voracious appetite for funding but remains dysfunctional.
This runs the risk of health inequalities becoming more entrenched as the better off simply opt out. Faced with difficulties in visiting a GP, those who can afford it will decide to pay for a consultation.
If the middle class stops using the NHS except in an emergency, this undermines the principle of universality.
On the plus side, Britain has some formidable assets in the quest for better health.
Our life sciences sector and major pharmaceutical companies are world leaders and we have fantastic expertise in data and AI.
Major institutional investors, including L&G and Phoenix, are pouring billions of pounds into healthcare innovation and helping people have a better old age.
We have some of the best academic brains in the world in this field at our universities.
Professor Marmot, an epidemiologist, is one of them. Economist Mariana Mazzucato, who heads an all-women council on the economics of health for all created by the World Health Organization, is another.
Britain led the world with the NHS. If we are smart, we can become a healthcare leader again. And we can all do our part in prevention by sticking to those healthy resolutions. Happy new year.