Life in BritainUsing millenial Census data to understand poverty, inequality and placeBack to main page of the report Some key findings The 2001 Census tells us that:
Example of results Provision of Health Care Analyses divide the country into unitary authorities, counties and former metropolitan authorities. The first graph here shows the relationship between the proportion of each area’s population with limiting long-term illness and poor health, and the number of qualified, practising medical doctors per head of population. It is apparent that the populations with the greatest need for health services have the lowest concentrations of qualified, working medical practitioners. This demonstrates the continued presence of an ‘Inverse Care Law’ (see J. Tudor-Hart (1971) The inverse care law, Lancet, 1, 406-412.). Graph 1: The inverse care law: areas with the highest levels of poor health tend to have the lowest numbers of medical practitioners. Note: In these graphs, each circle represents a county, unitary authoirity or former metropolitan county. The area of the circle is proportional to the population. However, the second graph shows that informal care (that provided by friends, relatives and neighbours) tends to be provided in almost direct proportion to need for that care. The map below illustrates the proportion of the population providing care across the UK. The graphs and map are taken from the reports ‘Doctors and Nurses’ and ‘In sickness and in health’, where these relationships are further described and analysed. Graph 2: The ‘positive care law’: areas with the highest levels of poor health tend to have the highest number of people providing care on an informal basis. Map: The distribution of people providing informal care for 20+ hours per week across the UK. Both maps use the same shading scheme. However, the map on the left is a cartogram, which makes each area proportional to its 2001 population. |