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Data

Urban Health Index for Lambeth and Southwark

8 July 2025

Explore the Urban Health Index, which looks at the social and environmental factors that shape the health of people living in Lambeth and Southwark.

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Impact on Urban Health

Urban Health Index

The Urban Health Index helps us to understand the social and environmental factors shaping people’s health in Lambeth and Southwark. Read more about the Urban Health Index 2025, including how you might use it, and what it tells us about health in these areas.

For the best experience, view the dashboard on a desktop.

How to use the Urban Health Index

The Urban Health Index uses social, health and environmental data to show how healthy a neighbourhood is, and help users understand potential barriers to good health in urban places.

It allows you to compare neighbourhoods, as well as understand areas of relative strength and weakness in each ward.

To help users apply the UHI to their context and needs, there are different views of the UHI data:

  • Navigation: Use the arrows in the top right of the dashboard to move between the following pages. The full screen mode can also be accessed by clicking the square icon in the bottom right.
  • Summary: gives a visual overview of the UHI results. This dashboard allows users to select a component and see how this compares across the wards in Lambeth and Southwark.
  • Ward Overview: allows users to select a ward and see how this ward performs across the main UHI components.
  • Basic human needs / Foundations of wellbeing / Opportunity: these dashboards all show the same visuals for each of the dimensions – Basic human needs, Foundations of wellbeing and Opportunity. They allow users to focus on a specific dimension and see more detail on the components and indicators within the chosen dimension.
  • Scorecard: allows users to select a ward and view all the components and indicators across the three dimensions for that ward.
  • Progress over time:  allows users to see how indicator scores have changed over time for the last three years of available data. 23 indicators have historical data and have been included in this dashboard.
  • Indicator comparison: allows users to explore how strongly two indicators, components or dimensions correlate (change together). Contextual data (such as annual household income) can also be compared.

See the user guide (pdf) for further details on how you can use the UHI.

About the Urban Health Index framework

The indicators are grouped into three key dimensions, with each containing a number of components:

A graphic with three boxes, for each the dimensions. The text reads: Basic human needs Nutrition and basic medical care Do people have enough food to eat and are they receiving basic medical care? Water and sanitation Can people drink water and keep themselves clean without getting sick? Shelter Do people have adequate housing with basic utilities? Personal safety Do people feel safe? Foundations of wellbeing Access to basic knowledge Do people have access to an educational foundation? Access to information and communication Can people freely access ideas and information from anywhere in the world? Health and wellness Do people live long and healthy lives? Environmental quality Is this society using its resources so they will be available to future generations? Opportunity Personal rights Are people’s rights as individuals protected? Personal freedom and choice Are people free to make their own choices? Inclusiveness Is no one excluded from the opportunity to be a contributing member of society? Access to advanced education Do people have the opportunity to access the world’s most advanced knowledge? Source: Social Progress Imperative (2018)

The three dimensions are:

  • Basic human needs – assessing if people in an area can fulfil basic needs, including nutrition, medical care, water, sanitation, housing and personal safety
  • Foundations of wellbeing – understanding whether people are able to live healthy and fulfilling lives, with access to education, information, health, and an environment that supports social wellbeing
  • Opportunity – looking at whether people have the freedom and opportunity to make their own choices. It assesses personal rights, freedom feel included within society

Find out more about our updated Urban Health Index.

Our new Urban Health Index methodology

We developed a unique set of indicators to understand the health of people in our boroughs. Find out more about how we decided upon these indicators in our methodology report and see the underlying data.

Download ward methodology (PDF) Download the raw data (.zip)

Previous versions of the Urban Health Index

The first version of the Urban Health Index was published in 2021, and then updated in 2023. You can view both data dashboards below:

Urban Health Index 2021

Urban Health Index 2023

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