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SUMMARY The public health movement has been concerned with the relation between housing and health for well over a century. Nevertheless the Black Report still identified housing as one of the major causes of ill-health and suggested, on one indicator at least, that council housing is the least healthy form of tenure. An exploratory study concerning housing and health in a north eastern local authority area is described. It was found that smoking, work experience, and age were the most important determinants of self assessed respiratory conditions. When the background factors were held constant people in areas of 'bad' housing were found to report more respiratory symptoms than those in 'good' housing areas. Respiratory conditions were affected by the age of housing, and flats were found to be worse than houses. High rise flats were worse than low or medium rise flats.The public health movement has shown a traditional concern with the relation between the health of the population and the housing in which they live. In his historical analysis of health in 19th century Britain, Wohl1 comments: "As the century progressed it became increasingly apparent that the growing structure of public health rested on domestic foundations and that the nation could not be healthy unless it housed its masses in healthy housing."This concern with the effect of housing on health progressed into the 20th century. Before the second world war a plethora of research demonstrated a causal connection between the dwellings in which people live and their state of health. In particular, tuberculosis was shown to be closely connected with over crowding and lack of basic amenities.2 At the time the housing market was dominated by the privately rented sector: in 1914 900/, of dwellings were rented from private landlords. Since then there has been a marked growth of public intervention in the housing market which, together with a large increase in owner occupation, reduced the privately rented sector to 12%/o of dwellings by 1982.3

This paper argues that UK insurance companies should abandon their policy of charging differential premiums and offering differential benefits to women and men on the basis of gender specific morbidity and mortality tables. The 1975 Sex Discrimination Act (SDA) permits such practices, although subsequent legal judgements, particularly in the European Court, have challenged aspects of them. However, the spirit of the SDA, as of recent European Community legislation, is to outlaw unequal treatment which arguably reflects unfair, culturally-based or outdated stereotypes about the capabilities and the needs of either sex. Firstly, this paper considers the contemporary legal and statutory context, as regards differential treatment of women and men, in which British insurance companies operate. Secondly, it discusses certain conflicting views as to whether such differentiation is either ‘fair’ to the insured or commercially necessary for the continued viability of the insurance industry, drawing on debates in this country and the United States. The paper concludes with some suggestions as to how changes might be introduced, on a legislative or voluntary basis.

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