ARC GM | Projects

What were we trying to do?
We wanted to find out what impact living in a ‘left behind’ neighbourhood has on people’s health, and what the potential longer-term effects were after the COVID-19 pandemic.

We also wanted to explore the role of communities in tackling health inequalities (which are unfair and avoidable differences in people's health that arise from the social and economic conditions in which they are born, grow, live, work, and age).

Why was this important?
People who experience health inequalities generally have worse health outcomes and shorter life expectancy, which also means they earn less money over their lifetime.

We know that improving health outcomes and reducing inequalities not only results in healthier, happier people, but also brings extra money into England’s economy. It’s estimated that tackling the health inequalities facing local authorities with ‘left behind’ neighbourhoods and bringing them up to England’s average could add an extra £29.8bn to the country’s economy each year.

How did we do it?

The All-Party Parliamentary Group (APPG) for left-behind neighbourhoods ran from 2019 to 2024 with the aim of improving social and economic outcomes for residents in communities that were experiencing a combination of:

economic deprivation
poor digital connectivity
low levels of community engagement
a lack of community spaces and places.

The APPG commissioned research to look at the health of residents living in England’s 225 ‘left behind’ neighbourhoods one year after the start of the lockdown.

Findings
We found that, overall, the 225 neighbourhoods classed as ‘left behind’ have some of the worst health outcomes in the country. Some key findings were:

9.1% of people in left-behind neighbourhoods (LBNs) self-report their health to be either ‘bad’ or ‘very bad’ compared to 8.1% in deprived neighbourhoods and 5.5% across England.
LBNs had more people with 15 of the most common 21 health conditions, including high blood pressure, obesity, depression, and chronic lung conditions (COPD).
People living in LBNs claim almost double the amount of incapacity benefits due to mental health compared to England as a whole.
Men living in LBNs lived 3.7 years less, and women 3 years less, than the national average.
People living in LBNs experience, on average, 7.5 fewer years of good health than the average person in England.
People who live in LBNs were 46% more likely to die of COVID-19 than the national average.

A number of policy recommendations were made to the government, including:

The government’s plan to ‘level up’ the country should include reducing health differences between places by improving local neighbourhoods, communities, and healthcare – with the new Office for Health Improvement and Disparities helping to lead the way.
Long-term, protected funding is needed to deliver support more effectively in local areas – especially for health inequality programmes that focus on small communities hit hardest by COVID and poor health – using ideas like Healthy New Towns.
To help ‘left behind’ communities improve health, we need steady funding over 10–15 years to build up local services, spaces, and support networks. These areas often don’t have the resources or facilities to take part in local health programmes, so one way to do this could be through the Community Wealth Fund, which would let local people shape the services they need most.

For all the findings and policy recommendations, see the full report: Overcoming health inequalities in ‘left behind’ neighbourhoods.

Who did we work with?

Funding information
This report was researched by OCSI and NHSA. It was funded by Local Trust, Secretariat to the APPG for ‘left behind’ neighbourhoods.

More information

Senior Programme Lead
Mike Spence
Mike.spence@healthinnovationmanchester.com