The government should introduce new 'national health indices' to measure progress in cutting health inequalities, the Faculty and Institute of Actuaries said last week.

The FIA said proposals in the public health green paper, Our Healthier Nation, should pay more attention to 'increasing the proportion of people's lives spent free from illness'.

A new range of health indices could monitor progress in reducing annual death rates from heart disease, strokes, cancer and suicide between now and 2010. But 'other indices, focusing on sub-divisions of social class or geographical location, could also be introduced', the FIA's Brian Ridsdale said.

The indices would be drawn up independently and published regularly.

Actuaries could set out long-term health objectives and provide a better understanding of risk factors, the FIA said.

Mr Ridsdale welcomed the drive towards improving health in schools, the workplace and local neighbourhoods, but urged the government to address a 'fourth setting - healthy homes'. This would stress the provision of adequate housing for the entire population and would better enable poverty-related sickness issues to be addressed, he added.