If the latest research on premature deaths is to be believed, it certainly seems so. Above the line “northerners” between the ages of 25 to 44 died in much greater numbers than “southerners” below it. For those aged between 35 and 44 the mortality rate was 50% higher among northerners. These blight regions unequally: the north-east had the highest drugs-related mortality rate, 77 per 1 million people. In truth, northerners’ health never completely recovered from the industrial revolution, which, as Dickens observed, saw “nature as strongly bricked out as killing airs and gases were bricked in”.

Source: The Guardian August 09, 2017 19:07 UTC