Rural England

Longstanding illness/disability

Graphs on this page:

Supporting information:

Key points

  • At all ages, the proportion of people with a limiting long-standing illness in rural districts is similar to that in urban districts.
  • In both rural and urban districts, people who are living in social rented accommodation are much more likely to have a limiting long-standing illness than those in other tenures.
  • Within any given housing tenure, the proportion of people with a limiting long-standing illness in rural districts is similar to that in urban districts.
  • See the UK indicator on long-standing illness.

Rural/urban ratios (urban = 10)

On most poverty and social exclusion indicators, rural areas have ‘better scores’ than urban areas.  The purpose of the table below is to differentiate between those subjects where rural areas are ‘a bit better’ and those where rural areas are ‘a lot better’.  It does so by presenting the rural statistics for the indicator as a proportion of the urban statistics.  So, for example, a rural ‘score’ of 6 in the table below means that the rural statistic is around 60% of its urban equivalent.

Graph 1

Type of district Aged less than 35 Aged 35 to 59 Aged 60 and over
‘Very rural’ districts 9 8 9
‘Mostly rural’ districts 9 8 9
‘Part rural’ districts 9 8 9

Graph 2

Type of district Owner occupiers Private renters Social renters
‘Very rural’ districts 10 11 10
‘Mostly rural’ districts 10 11 10
‘Part rural’ districts 9 11 10

Definitions and data sources

The graphs

For each type of local authority district, the two graphs show the proportion of people who self-report a limiting long-term illness.  In the first graph, the data is split by age group.  In the second graph, it is split by housing tenure.

Level of the data

Lower tier local authorities (districts), as classified by the DEFRA 2009 classification system.  Both the DEFRA classification rules and their results by local authority can be found on the page on rural/urban classification systems.

Source

2001 Census (table so017).

The numbers

Graph 1

Type of district Aged less than 35 Aged 35 to 59 Aged 60 and over
‘Very rural’ districts 5.2% 13.6% 41.1%
‘Mostly rural’ districts 5.3% 14.4% 42.6%
‘Part rural’ districts 5.2% 14.2% 43.0%
Urban districts 5.8% 17.6% 47.5%

Graph 2

Type of district Owner occupiers Private renters Social renters
‘Very rural’ districts 15.3% 15.9% 27.1%
‘Mostly rural’ districts 15.3% 16.2% 28.3%
‘Part rural’ districts 14.4% 15.7% 27.6%
Urban districts 15.4% 14.4% 27.3%