Tuesday 6 May 2008

The Index of Multiple Deprivation 2004 to 2007

The new Indices of Deprivation for 2007 were released very late in 2007 and since this is an area I'm particularly interested in, I thought I'd blog on the differences between 2004 and 2007.

I've been exploring IMD 2007 just to see how it compares with IMD 2004 since authors say that they are comparable (but they do of course acknowledge that the methodology is not exactly the same).

For the most acutely deprived wards, there's not too much change, but the most deprived LSOA out of all 32,482 has moved from north Liverpool to south Liverpool (from just beside Anfield, Liverpool FC's stadium to Speke, by Liverpool John Lennon Airport). The list of the most deprived 100 LSOAs (about 150,000 people in total) is still dominated by the North West, with 68 out of the most deprived 100 LSOAs in England. It is also interesting to note the co-location of football stadia and the most deprived LSOAs. This phenomenon is perhaps not that surprising but it is replicated across Great Britian in other indices of deprivation. It also highlights the massive gulf between rich and poor in a very real manner.

More interesting are those LSOAs which have seen a significant change in LSOA rank. Using the 10% cut-off for change in rank (i.e. a move of 3,248 or more places up or down the list) I did a quick bit of analysis just to see how areas might have changed. In total, 2,374 of England's 32,482 LSOAs saw a change in rank of more than or equal to a 10% shift in their IMD category. That's 7.3% of all LSOAs, which seems like quite a lot. Most of these were not among England's 10% most deprived, but a handful were. Seventeen LSOAs among the most deprived 10% in 2004 experienced an improvement in their IMD ranking of 10% or more between 2004 and 2007.

Conversely, there were 11 LSOAs which declined by 10% or more between 2004 and 2007 to place among England's 10% most deprived. Most were in London. Overall, it's interesting to note the changes in ranks of areas and how extreme these can be. I just question if there can really have been that much change in 3 years in some of these cases and if so, what has caused it (gentrification? housing market pressures?). Are those LSOAs which have shown large improvements big success stories or statistical anomalies?

Lots of interesting nuggets when we compare IMD 2004 and IMD 2007.