Data and analytics • Urban health

Why does healthy life expectancy vary so much in Lambeth and Southwark?

21 April 2022

2 min read

The difference in healthy life expectancy between the richest and poorest neighbourhoods in Lambeth and Southwark is up to 17 years. Using data, we explore why.

Rob Parker

Data and Analytics Director

The gap in healthy life expectancy between Tulse Hill and Herne Hill & Dulwich Park is 17 years.

Tulse Hill and Herne Hill are two neighbourhoods in the London Boroughs of Lambeth and Southwark. Female Healthy Life Expectancy is the average number of years a woman might expect to live in good health in their lifetime.

Tulse Hill and Herne Hill & Dulwich Park are less than mile from each other.

Or put another way, it’s a 20 min walk or 7 mins on the Route 68 bus to get between their respective train stations. There’s a significant different in income, with the average household in Hearne Hill earning almost £15,000 more than in Tulse Hill. The proportion of women receiving unemployment benefits in Tulse Hill was 8.7 per cent, almost 5 times the proportion in Herne Hill per cent.

Areas with high levels of deprivation have a lower life expectancy.

While the two neighbourhoods we’re focusing on represent the extremes, the relationship between life expectancy and deprivation is systematic.

Place matters, deprivation and poor health outcomes cluster.

Overlaying data on healthy life expectancy and deprivation, we can see that health outcomes and deprivation are not uniformly spread across the boroughs – they cluster.

Interested in our data work?

Get in touch with our Data and Analytics Director, Rob Parker, to see how we can work together to use data to tackle complex health problems.

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