Inequalities

Reducing inequalities means giving everyone the same opportunities to lead a healthy and fulfilling life, no matter where they live or who they are.  Currently, in England, people living in the least deprived areas of the country live around 20 years longer in good health than people in the most deprived areas.  Inequalities exist across a range of dimensions, such as socio-economic deprivation and personal characteristics like age and sex.  

Herefordshire has, on average, relatively low levels of overall, multiple deprivation and similar proportions of children living in relatively income deprived households as nationally and slightly lower proportion living in absolute low-income families.

In 2022/23, 19.7% of children under 16 in Herefordshire (c.5,900 children) were living in relative low-income families; a similar proportion to England (19.8%) but lower than the West Midlands (28.4%).  15.0% of children (c.4,500 children) were living in absolute low-income families, compared to 15.6% in England and 21.7% in the West Midlands. 

It is important to note though that these figures do not take account of housing costs.  Third sector research suggests that after taking account of housing costs, in 2021-22 30.7% of children in Herefordshire were living in poverty; a higher proportion than nationally (29.2%) but less than the West Midlands region (38%). This equates to around 10,900 children in Herefordshire living in poverty.[1]

Herefordshire is one of England's most rural counties and rural areas pose different types of challenges for the people who live there compared to urban areas. Nationally, more emphasis is often given to urban inequalities, not least as across England the majority of the population live in urban areas, but also our common measure of deprivation (the government’s Index of Multiple Deprivation is known to be skewed towards identifying deprivation in an urban context.  Rural deprivation looks very different.  In rural areas, the most common types of deprivation relate to housing and physical access to services.  Furthermore, deprivation can be a hidden feature of rural communities as it is often dispersed amongst more affluent households. Within even the most affluent areas, there can be pockets of real hardship, ill health and inequality.  These themes are explored in detail in the Director of Public Health's Annual Report, which can be viewed via 'useful links'.

[1] Child Poverty in your area.  End Child Poverty.