The COVID-19 Health Inequalities Monitoring in England (CHIME) tool brings together data relating to the direct impacts of coronavirus (COVID-19) on factors such as mortality rates, hospital admissions, confirmed cases and vaccinations.

By presenting inequality breakdowns - including by age, sex, ethnic group, level of deprivation and region - the tool provides a single point of access to:

• show how inequalities have changed during the course of the pandemic and what the current cumulative picture is
• bring together data in one tool to enable users to access and use the intelligence more easily
• provide indicators with a consistent methodology across different data sets to facilitate understanding
• support users to identify and address inequalities within their areas, and identify priority areas for recovery

In the March 2023 update, data has been updated for deaths, hospital admissions and vaccinations. Data on inequalities in vaccination uptake within upper tier local authorities has been added to the tool for the first time. This replaces data for lower tier local authorities, published in December 2022, allowing the reporting of a wider range of inequality breakdowns within these areas.

Please send any questions or comments to PHA-OHID@dhsc.gov.uk

According to a survey conducted in the United Kingdom (UK) in 2021, ** percent of people thought it is important that the government addresses health differences due to income, while a further ** percent thought it is important to address health differences due to geographical areas.

Rates of mortality involving cancers, cardiovascular diseases, chronic kidney disease, dementia, diabetes, and respiratory diseases, by Census 2021 variables. Experimental Statistics.

Supporting annual data for socioeconomic inequalities in avoidable mortality in England.

In the 2022/23 financial year, various measures of inequality in the United Kingdom decreased when compared with 2021/22. The S80/20 ratio fell from *** to ***, the P90/10 ratio from *** to ***, and the Palma ratio between *** and ***.

Annual age-standardised mortality rates by deprivation decile and quintile, sex and cause as well as absolute (Slope Index of Inequality) measures of inequality in England and Wales.

This indicator measures inequalities in life expectancy at birth within England as a whole, each English region, and each local authority. Life expectancy at birth is calculated for each deprivation decile of lower super output areas within each area and then the slope index of inequality (SII) is calculated based on these figures.

The SII is a measure of the social gradient in life expectancy, i.e., how much life expectancy varies with deprivation. It takes account of health inequalities across the whole range of deprivation within each area and summarises this in a single number. This represents the range in years of life expectancy across the social gradient from most to least deprived, based on a statistical analysis of the relationship between life expectancy and deprivation across all deprivation deciles.

Life expectancy at birth is a measure of the average number of years a person would expect to live based on contemporary mortality rates. For a particular area and time period, it is an estimate of the average number of years a newborn baby would survive if he or she experienced the age-specific mortality rates for that area and time period throughout his or her life.

The SII for England and for regions have been presented alongside the local authority figures in order to improve the display of the indicators on the overview page. However, they should not be considered as comparators for the local authority figures. The SII for England takes account of the full range of deprivation and mortality across the whole country. This does not therefore provide a suitable benchmark with which to compare local authority results, which take into account the range of deprivation and mortality within much smaller geographies.

Data is Powered by LG Inform Plus and automatically checked for new data on the 3rd of each month.

The Mayors Health Inequalities Strategy sets out his plans to tackle unfair differences in health to make London a healthier, fairer city.

This dataset reports the 14 headline population health indicators that will be used to monitor London’s progress in reducing health inequalities over the next ten years.

The themes of the indicators are listed below. The measures will monitor an identified inequality gap between defined populations.

1. Healthy life expectancy at birth – male
2. Healthy life expectancy at birth – female
3. Children born with low birth weight
4. School readiness among children
5. Excess weight in children at age 10-11 (year 6)
6. Excess mortality in adults with serious mental illness
7. Suicide
8. Mortality caused by Particulate Matter (PM2.5)
9. Employment
10. Feeling of belonging to a community (provisional)
11. HIV late diagnosis
12. People diagnosed with TB
13. Adults walking or cycling for two periods of ten minutes each day
14. Smoking

This release presents trends in estimates of mortality rates for males and females of working age in English regions and Wales, from 2001-03 to 2008-10, calculated using population denominators derived from the Labour Force Survey (LFS). The analysis is based on the seven class reduced National Statistics Socio-economic Classification (NS-SEC).

Source agency: Office for National Statistics

Designation: Official Statistics not designated as National Statistics

Language: English

Alternative title: Health Inequalities

Creative Insights is a research project focused on exploring young people’s perspectives on health inequalities, particularly their ideas for potential solutions. In 2018, the project was conceived as a partnership between researchers at University of Glasgow’s MRC/CSO Social and Public Health Sciences Unit and CoSS, and community organisations Impact Arts in Glasgow and Leeds Playhouse that would involve dynamic face-to-face workshops with artists, young people and researchers working together to develop research and creative outputs with a message for policymakers. In practice, the onset of the pandemic switched the focus to delivering all aspects of the project online, including focus group discussions, workshop activities, and individual and collaborative art-making. As such, the data included in this collection comprises transcripts of Zoom recordings and the final artworks presented by each of the young participants. Focus group discussions focused on various themes relating to health inequalities and their potential solutions, with descriptions of prompts and activities detailed in the topic guides.

The enduring existence of health inequalities, unfair differences in the health and wellbeing of different groups in society, is a key concern for many citizens, researchers and policymakers. Research that has focused on public views of the causes of these differences suggests that, in general, people have well-developed understandings of the factors that contribute to health inequalities. People from communities across the UK have identified the range of upstream factors which influence their health and the health of those around them, including housing conditions, unemployment and lack of funding for communities and services. Despite both policymakers and public groups understanding these causes, limited progress has been made towards reducing health inequalities in Scotland or UK-wide. Citizens' views on this lack of progress, and their perceptions of potential policy measures which could reduce health inequalities, have not been explored in detail. Young people's perspectives on these issues are also not currently well understood.

Media representations of health inequalities can negatively impact those communities and individuals most impacted by inequalities by furthering feelings of stigma or shame, related to the areas they live in being labelled deprived or disadvantaged. Calls for new qualitative research suggests that researchers should engage sensitively with the topic and avoid stigmatising language, but also aim to include diverse population groups to explore the consequences of inequality across society. Various models of research have been proposed to overcome some of these barriers, including participatory research which invites participants to actively shape projects and contribute to outputs alongside researchers.

In order to develop our understanding of young people's views on health inequalities, this project involves working together with young people in Glasgow and Leeds, cities where reducing health inequalities is a priority. Creative organisations (Impact Arts in Glasgow and Opera North in Leeds), who have contributed to the development of this project, will facilitate the engagement of groups of young people in several workshop sessions. These sessions will be led by researchers and creative partners, who are experienced in delivering creative engagement events with groups of the public, to explore the causes and consequences of health inequalities. Participants will also be supported to discuss their perspectives on potential policy solutions, pursuing those issues which they prioritise as most important or most relevant to their lives, communities or peers. Over the course of the sessions participants will also engage in creative processes to produce artistic outputs that reflect their perspectives on the enduring public health problem of health inequalities. These creative outputs will provide the focus for a series of engagement events and workshops with representatives from local government, health boards, third sector organisations and local communities. By generating new insights and creative representations of these, young people will be facilitated to actively contribute to ongoing policy discussions about the reduction of social inequalities in health across both local and national contexts.

Health inequalities are the differences in health and wellbeing, risk or outcomes, between different groups of people. Tackling health inequalities requires knowledge about the factors affecting health. With input from key stakeholders we selected 12 indicators of health and the wider determinants of health which we will monitor over time. These indicators will improve our understanding of health inequalities.

Go to Tackling London’s Health Inequalities for more information on the HIS Health Inequalities Strategy and the Indicators.

Data and Resources

The most recent data for each indicator will be available for download below:

Overall measures of health inequality:

1. Slope Index of Inequality for Life Expectancy
2. Healthy Life Expectancy
3. Self-reported wellbeing:
   1. Happiness
   2. Life Satisfaction
   3. Worthwhileness
   4. Anxiety

More specific measures of health inequality:

1. School Readiness at age 5
2. Educational Achievement - Percentage of pupils achieving 5 or more GCSEs at grades A*-C (including English and Maths)
3. Antenatal late booking - Percentage of pregnant women booking after 12wks +6 days
4. Flu vaccination proportion of those >65 years and of those at risk
5. Vulnerable road user risk of fatality or serious injury
6. Homelessness
   1. Statutory homelessness
   2. Homelessness prevention
   3. Change in number of rough sleepers
7. Proportion of employees receiving lower income than the London Living Wage
8. Unemployment rates – model-based estimates; proportion of resident population
9. Childhood obesity - Proportion of children aged 4-5 classified as overweight or obese.

Life expectancy (LE), healthy life expectancy (HLE), disability-free life expectancy (DFLE), Slope Index of Inequality (SII) and range at birth and age 65 by national deprivation deciles (IMD 2015 and IMD 2019), England, 2011 to 2019.

The draft London Health Inequalities Strategy This document outlines the main issues that lead to inequalities in the health of different groups of Londoners, and a set of aims for reducing them. It outlines the Mayor’s role, but also how other organisations working in health in London can work together to ensure that all Londoners can benefit from a healthy lifestyle.

The draft strategy was published on the London.gov.uk website on 23 August 2017 for a 14-week public consultation (closing 30 November 2017).

The Report to the Mayor provides a high-level summary and analysis of the issues raised during the consultation of the draft strategy, from both technical stakeholders and members of the public. This allowed the Mayor to have proper regard to the consultation responses when deciding whether to approve the final version of the strategy.

The public responded to the consultation via Talk London online discussion threads and surveys; and via representative polling. The Talk London datasets and emailed responses were analysed by policy area, and compared against insights from the representative polling. This allowed the team to identify any similarities or differences between the views of the general population and the views of the Talk London community.

All datasets on a policy area were brought together in a single thematic summary report, which aimed to show where the balance of opinion lay, as well as highlight areas of disagreement or debate. These reports are provided below, alongside the more detailed qualitative and quantitative research findings and data tables.

SII in HLE at birth for males and females by UTLAs, Regions and England along with HLE estimates of those MSOAs used in the inequality analysis.

Abstract copyright UK Data Service and data collection copyright owner.

This is a mixed method data collection. The study is part of the Rural Economy and Land Use (RELU) programme. The data result from two RELU projects carried out by the same research team:
• Social and environmental conditions in rural areas (SECRA), 01/10/2004 - 30/09/2005
• Social and environmental inequalities in rural areas (SEIRA), 01/08/2007 -31/07/2009

Both SECRA and SEIRA consist of a series of social and environmental variables for the same 6,027 rural Lower Super Output Areas in England. SECRA is the base dataset produced during the pilot project. The SEIRA dataset contains additional variables. In addition, SEIRA also contains interviews with rural residents on perceptions of inequality and inequity. Interview results revealed that people recognise that rural areas offer limited opportunities for recreation and local services, and a lack of affordable housing.

SECRA: The dataset on social and environmental conditions in rural areas was intended to encourage and enable researchers and policy makers to include both social and environmental perspectives in their consideration of rural problems.

The original objectives of the one-year scoping study to produce the dataset were:
1. to compile a rural sustainability dataset incorporating both socio-economic and
environmental characteristics of rural census output areas in England;
2. to highlight and address the methodological difficulties in working with spatial and
survey data from sources in the social and environmental science domains;
3. to identify the limitations of currently available data for rural areas;
4. to pilot the use of the rural sustainability dataset for classifying rural areas according to socio-economic and environmental conditions and hence allowing the construction of typologies to provide sampling frames for further research and to inform policies for sustainable rural development;
5. to explore the possibilities of extending dataset coverage to Scotland and Northern
Ireland given differences in census data infrastructures and output design processes.

The SECRA dataset has been compiled at the level of the new Super Output Areas (SOAs) for England. The rural extent has been identified from the new Office of the Deputy Prime Minister (ODPM) definition of urban and rural areas which relies primarily on the morphology and context of settlements.

Further information and documentation for this study may be found through the ESRC Research Catalogue: Developing spatial data for the classification of rural areas.

SEIRA: This research project has investigated the nature and extent of social and environmental inequalities and injustice in rural England addressing the questions:
1. How can we measure rural spatial inequalities in (a) socio-economic and (b) environmental-ecological characteristics of small-scale areas of England?
2. How can inequality measures inform our understanding of the distributions of social and environmental deprivation in rural England?
3. How do rural residents experience the kinds of inequality identified by the research, and what types of inequalities do they perceive as inequitable?
4. Are there identifiable areas of rural England where the potential for environmental and social inequity suggests a need for policy intervention?

Inequality in social, economic and environmental conditions has important implications for individuals or groups of people experiencing its negative effects, but also for society as a whole. In urban areas, poor environments are associated frequently with deprivation and social exclusion. Where the unequal distribution of social and environmental goods is considered unfair, it constitutes social or environmental injustice. This project has quantified inequalities in social and environmental conditions throughout rural England and identified those areas where inequalities are greatest. It has also enhanced understanding of perceptions of inequality and injustice in rural areas. The work shows how rural policy can be refined and targeted to tackle these multi-faceted problems in the most appropriate way for the benefit of society.

Further information for this study may be found through the ESRC Research Catalogue webpage: Social and environmental inequalities in rural areas.

While London tends to have better health outcomes than the rest of the UK, stark ethnic and socioeconomic inequalities remain. The Snapshot of Health Inequalities in London provides a high-level overview of major inequalities issues affecting Londoners with thematic packs on climate, children and young people, and the cost of living. This is a resource intended to inform health and non-health specialists. It will inform action on health inequalities across all strategies, policies and programmes, supporting a health in all policies approach. Webinar ‘Exploring the London Snapshot of Health Inequalities’ webinar presents the key findings followed by a panel discussion, covering five priority areas: Child health equity Cardiovascular health Mental health Poverty and economy Climate and environment Watch the webinar here. Development of the resource Greater London Authority (GLA) Health, GLA City Intelligence Unit, Office for Health Improvement and Disparities London (OHID), Association of Directors of Public Health London (ADPH), NHSE and Institute of Health Equity (IHE) have collaboratively produced this report. The snapshot brings together published data. The topics and themes have been identified with partners through iterative discussion. Originally published in 2022, this updated and expanded version was published in July 2024.