Local health, public health data for small geographic areas

Recent update: August 2025

In this release 20 indicators have been updated to the latest available time period. This includes indicators on mortality, life expectancy, general fertility rate, low birth weight babies, fuel poverty, unemployment and long term unemployment. The child weight indicators have been updated to Middle layer Super Output Area 2021 (MSOA 21) boundaries. 14 indicators have been removed from Local Health. The Local Health indicator updates provides details of indicators updated and removed in this release.

Data has been updated for middle layer super output areas (MSOA), lower tier and upper tier local authorities, regions and England. Data for wards and clinical commissioning groups (CCGs) has been removed from the tool.

Please note the www.localhealth.org.uk website has now been decomissioned as explained in the recent update note from January 2025. All queries to the decomissioned site should be redirected here.

Introduction

Local health is a collection of public health indicators presented at small geographical areas. By breaking the data down to smaller areas, hidden inequalities can be highlighted. Local Health contains indicators related to:

population and demographic factors, including age, sex and deprivation
health outcomes
wider determinants of health, including housing and living environment

A core aim of the Office for Health Improvement and Disparities (OHID) is reducing health inequalities. Local health data can be used to target interventions in areas where there is most need.

Local health allows comparisons between small and large areas, for a single point in time. The data is not designed for time trend analysis. The data covers areas ranging from middle super output areas (MSOA), statistical regions, local authorities, and England.

The latest local health statistical commentary for the 2022 update: Local health commentary

Useful documents

Further guidance to geographic areas: Office for National Statistics UK geographies page.

Guidance on methods for small geographic areas: The association of public health observatories (APHO) technical briefing 6

Contents