Ribble Valley were today named the healthiest city in England in the official league table, placing Blackpool at the bottom.
Analysts from the Office for National Statistics (ONS) rank all 307 council areas in the country on their annual health index to measure key areas of public health. The results were released on an interactive tool, allowing users to see how your field stands.
The Ribble Valley – an area in Lancashire that covers Clythero and other ‘charming towns and villages’ – scored the best in England for 2019 with a score of 112.9.
Meanwhile, county neighbor Blackpool dropped to the bottom of the charts, scoring 90.6 points.
The Ribble Valley, which includes the city of Clythero (pictured here in 2019) has been ranked as the healthiest city in England by the Office for National Statistics in its Health Index report.
A breakdown of how Ribble Valley performed across multiple categories in the Health Index in 2019. A score above 100 indicates that it performed better than the national average for England in 2015 and a score below 100 indicates it was below the national average. Ribble Valley fared very well when it comes to the health of children and youth, although scored low in ‘access to services’ such as GPs, distance to pharmacies, sports or leisure facilities, and Internet access.
In terms of the North West, the Ribble Valley performed second best in terms of physical health conditions in the North West, but was well above England’s average for 2019.
A similar pattern in terms of living conditions with the Ribble Valley once again performing second best in the region, but still far ahead of England’s average score for 2019.
Ribble Valley took the regional lead in how its residents experience difficulties in daily life, including aspects of how residents live with issues such as disability and frailty.
Called the health index, each area receives an assessment of three areas of health which are further divided into various sub-categories.
The three main areas are called:
- Healthy people, which tracks aspects such as mortality data;
- Healthy Living, which tracks risk factors related to individuals, such as healthy eating and high blood pressure;
- Healthy space, which measures social and environmental health factors such as air pollution and access to green spaces.
Each region receives a score comparing its 2019 performance with the 2015 national average.
The 2015 score is treated as a baseline of 100, with a score higher than that indicating an area is healthy above average, and below that it is unhealthy.
The ONS said the Ribble Valley performed about 20 points better than the English average for physical health, driven by a reduction in cancer and diabetes among its population.
The borough’s living conditions score also increased from 113.5 in 2015 to 119.6 in 2019, driven by poor sleep and reductions in air pollution.
While Ribble Valley was a clear star in many categories, such as the health of its children and youth, and the physical health of its residents, it still performed below average in some areas.
These include access to a range of services, which includes things such as GP services, distance from pharmacies, distance to sports or leisure facilities and access to the Internet as well as green spaces.
In contrast to Ribble Valley, Blackpool had the worst performance of all the boroughs in England, finishing last with a score of 90.6. However, it was actually an increase of 0.1 compared to its 2018 score.
While some improvements were made to Blackpool’s physical health, particularly dementia, it was still in the bottom 30 percent of all England boroughs for this category.
Blackpool’s living conditions also saw improvement, particularly for air pollution, which scored 28.9 points higher in 2019 than in 2015. But it declined due to lack of sleep, leading to a drop of 12 points.
Blackpool was the worst-ranked area in England in terms of health, scoring 90.6, the lowest score out of 307 local authority areas (Blackpool leisure beach pictured)
Blackpool ranked the worst for England in 2019 in terms of its Health Index score, performing worse than the 2015 national average in several areas, including mortality, difficulties in daily living such as weakness and disability, and offense well behind the rest. is in a way. Country. However, Blackpool had better than average access to GPs, distance to pharmacies, distance to sports or leisure facilities, and services such as Internet access.
This chart shows how the Health Index for England, and its three main categories ‘Healthy People’, ‘Healthy Lives’ and ‘Healthy Places’, performed from 2015 and 2019. It shows that the overall score has remained stable over that time but has increased. The ‘healthy people’ seen from 2016 to 2018 have disappeared and even fell below 2015 levels in 2019. While there has been a recovery in ‘healthy places’ since 2018’s lows, it is still below the 2015 score.
Regionally South East was the top scorer in the Health Index report with a score of 102.9, compared to North East being the worst performing region for health with a score of 96.7.
The chart provides a breakdown for each of the three broad regions as measured by the South East, along with the overall Health Index score for each region, with the East Midlands having higher scores in all three regions than only two regions of England. were to do. in 2015
Comparing national scores, the ONS found that England’s health remained broadly stable between 2015 and 2019 with a score of 100.1.
It should be noted that the health index only includes data for 2019, so the impact of the COVID pandemic, both from the virus itself and the disruption to both physical and mental health due to the lockdown, will not be reflected in the results.
The ONS found that while improvements were made in the ‘healthy living’ portion of the index, these were offset by small declines in ‘healthy people’ and ‘healthy places’.
The ONS plans to release a health index for 2020 that will cover the first year of the COVID pandemic later this year.
