A think-tank report (written by a young black working class man) said that a 'culture of dependency' ruled working class people in inner-city areas.
Source: Shaun Bailey, No Man s Land: How Britain s inner city young are being failed, Centre for Policy Studies (020 7222 4488)
Links: Report (Chapter 1)
Date: 2005-Dec
A report examined patterns of economic segregation in England. It identified both the underlying patterns of deprivation and why people chose to move to particular areas. It was particularly difficult to design policies to attract back older households to cities in order to promote integration.
Source: Geoffrey Meen, Kenneth Gibb, Jennifer Goody, Thomas McGrath and Jane Mackinnon, Economic Segregation in England: Causes, consequences and policy, Policy Press for Joseph Rowntree Foundation, available from Marston Book Services (01235 465500)
Links: Report | JRF Findings
Date: 2005-Dec
A paper used data from the 1991 and 2001 Censuses, and from geographical information systems analysis, to analyze what happened during the 1990s to a collection of neighbourhoods in England identified as poor in 1991. Over the decade, the poverty wards made progress on a few key measures, including declines in work poverty: but on other measures of neighbourhood vitality, the already large gaps between poverty wards and national averages widened.
Source: Alan Berube, Narrowing the Gap?: The trajectory of England's poor neighbourhoods, 1991-2001, CASE Brookings Census Brief 4, Centre for Analysis of Social Exclusion/London School of Economics (020 7955 6679)
Links: Paper
Date: 2005-Dec
A report said that average family incomes in the richest districts of the south of England were five times higher than in the poorest areas of the north, based on an analysis of the relative wealth of every postcode area.
Source: Wealth of the Nation 2005, CACI Information Solutions (020 7602 6000)
Links: Summary | Guardian report
Date: 2005-Nov
A report said that residents in deprived neighbourhoods were getting lower standards of street cleaning and refuse collection services than residents in more affluent areas.
Source: Annette Hastings, John Flint, Carol McKenzie and Carl Mills, Cleaning up Neighbourhoods: Environmental problems and service provision in deprived neighbourhoods, Policy Press for Joseph Rowntree Foundation, available from Marston Book Services (01235 465500)
Links: Report | JRF Findings | JRF press release
Date: 2005-Nov
Two linked report examined the social impacts of community severance (where transport projects impaired community life, including access to services).
Source: Understanding Community Severance I: Views of Practitioners and Communities, Department for Transport (0870 1226 236) | Understanding Community Severance II: Monetisation of Severance impacts, Department for Transport
Date: 2005-Nov
An article said that urban lower social class households were more likely than others to be located in areas of poor air quality: but the association in rural areas was, if anything, reversed.
Source: Benedict Wheeler and Yoav Ben-Shlomo, 'Environmental equity, air quality, socioeconomic status, and respiratory health: a linkage analysis of routine data from the Health Survey for England', Journal of Epidemiology and Community Health, Volume 59 Number 11
Links: Abstract
Date: 2005-Nov
A report examined the relationship between local drug markets and their host communities. Tackling drug markets solely in terms of policing crime risked misunderstanding the way in which they worked: more flexible responses were necessary.
Source: Tiggey May, Martin Duffy, Bradley Few and Mike Hough, Understanding Drug Selling in Communities: Insider or outsider trading?, York Publishing Services for Joseph Rowntree Foundation, available from York Publishing Services Ltd (01904 430033)
Links: Report | JRF Findings | JRF press release | Guardian report
Date: 2005-Nov
An article examined the role of neighbourhood effects in childhood injury. It said that reducing inequalities in injury rates might be achieved more effectively by focusing prevention on families rather than neighbourhoods: but in practice interventions at both levels were likely to be necessary.
Source: Denise Kendrick, Caroline Mulvaney, Paul Burton and Michael Watson, 'Relationships between child, family and neighbourhood characteristics and childhood injury: a cohort study', Social Science & Medicine Volume 61, Issue 9
Links: Abstract
Date: 2005-Nov
An article examined trends in poor neighbourhoods, using 1991 and 2001 Census data. Deprived neighbourhoods made substantial progress on indicators of work, education and home ownership: but negative trends in population, health and lone parenthood tempered those improvements. Moreover, there were disparate trends within and across regions.
Source: Ruth Lupton and Alan Berube, 'Poor neighbourhoods in the 1990s: better or worse? An analysis of 1991 and 2001 UK Census data', Benefits, Volume 13 Number 3
Links: Abstract
Date: 2005-Oct
A study looked at the geographical relationship between poverty, affluence and area under five key themes, using data from the 2001 Census. Poor people with the greatest need for good healthcare, education, jobs, housing and transport continued to have the worst access to opportunities and services.
Source: Ben Wheeler, Mary Shaw, Richard Mitchell and Daniel Dorling, Life in Britain: Using Millennial Census data to understand poverty, inequality and place, Policy Press for Joseph Rowntree Foundation, available from Marston Book Services (01235 465500)
Links: JRF Findings 0425 | JRF press release | CPAG press release | Guardian report
Date: 2005-Sep
An article said that there was a strong relationship, at ward level, between measures of deprivation and referrals to local authority child care teams. It said that more use needed to be made of quantitative methods in social work research in order to identify and understand more fully the influence of structural factors on issues relating to family and child care.
Source: Karen Winter and Paul Connolly, 'A small-scale study of the relationship between measures of deprivation and child-care referrals', British Journal of Social Work, Volume 35 Number 6
Links: Abstract
Date: 2005-Sep
The Welsh Assembly government published an official measure for deprivation in small areas in Wales. The new measure (which replaced the original index produced in 2000) included a new element of deprivation, relating to people s physical environment; and it went down to a smaller spatial scale.
Source: Welsh Index of Multiple Deprivation 2005: Summary report, Welsh Assembly Government (029 2082 5111)
Links: Report (pdf) | WAG press release
Date: 2005-Sep
A compendium of statistics provided detailed information on the depth and concentration of poverty and disadvantage in deprived areas in Scotland, as defined by the Scottish Index of Multiple Deprivation 2004.
Source: Social Focus on Deprived Areas 2005, Scottish Executive, available from Blackwell's Bookshop (0131 622 8283)
Links: Report
Date: 2005-Sep
A report said that a new generation of internet-based information services, that enabled house-hunters to select their 'ideal' neighbourhood, had the potential to widen the divide between the richest and poorest localities.
Source: Roger Burrows, Nick Ellison and Brian Woods, Neighbourhoods on the Net: The nature and impact of internet-based neighbourhood information systems, Policy Press for Joseph Rowntree Foundation, available from Marston Book Services (01235 465500)
Links: Report (pdf) | JRF Findings 0405 | JRF press release | Guardian report
Date: 2005-Aug
A report examined the development of a new way to identify communities at risk of having problems accessing healthy food. A 'food access radar' enabled maps to show a range of factors to identify communities likely to be at risk.
Source: Mike O?Neill, Putting Food Access on the Radar, National Consumer Council (020 7730 3469)
Links: Report (pdf)
Date: 2005-Jul
A report said that the physical appearance of an area - including levels of litter and rubbish, scruffiness of gardens and the prevalence of high rise flats or open space - was a better guide to local residents' satisfaction with their surroundings than levels of deprivation.
Source: Physical Capital: Liveability in 2005, MORI Social Research Institute (020 7347 3000)
Links: Summary | Guardian report
Date: 2005-Jun
Household income estimates were published for the 12 regions and countries of the United Kingdom, 37 sub-regions and 133 groups of unitary authorities or districts. There were new figures for the period 2000-2003, and revisions for 1995-1999. In 2003, the region with the highest gross disposable household income per capita was London, at 15,235; the north-east region had the lowest, at 10,787.
Source: Regional Household Income, Office for National Statistics (0845 601 3034)
Links: Report (pdf)
Date: 2005-Apr
A paper provided scores under the English Index of Multiple Deprivation 2004 for the New Deal for Communities areas.
Source: Chelsie Anttila and Gemma Wright, Multiple Deprivation in New Deal for Communities Areas: Applying the Index of Multiple Deprivation 2004 to NDC areas, Social Disadvantage Research Centre/University of Oxford (01865 270325)
Links: Paper (pdf)
Date: 2005-Mar
Researchers used data from the 2001 Census to identify key socio-demographic features of all 39 New Deal for Communities areas.
Source: Christina Beatty, Catherine Jones and Paul Lawless, The NDC Programme: An Overview of the 2001 Census, Centre for Regional, Economic and Social Research/Sheffield Hallam University (0114 225 3073)
Links: Report (pdf)
Date: 2005-Mar
An article said that, in both policy and economic debates, the specifically local experiences of older people living in deprived neighbourhoods had been ignored.
Source: Pamela Abbott and Roger Sapsford, 'Living on the margins', Policy Studies, Volume 26 Number 1
Links: Abstract
Date: 2005-Mar
A research report identified the complex nature of rural disadvantage in England. Those who were living on low incomes in urban areas were clustered together, whereas in rural areas they were mostly scattered. Helping these people gain access to jobs, healthcare and other vital services posed a significant challenge.
Source: Rural Disadvantage: Our first thematic study, Commission for Rural Communities/Countryside Agency (0870 120 6466)
Links: Report (pdf) | Countryside Agency press release
Date: 2005-Mar
An article used data from the 2001 Census to compare the geographical pattern of self-rated health of long-term unemployed people to that of people from different social classes, and of those who had never worked. The health of long-term unemployed people was better in high unemployment areas, and conversely worse where the labour market was traditionally stronger. This was the reverse of the pattern found for different social classes and for those who had never worked.
Source: Margaret Whitehead, Frances Drever and Tim Doran, 'Is the health of the long-term unemployed better or worse in high unemployment areas?', Health Statistics Quarterly 25, Spring 2005, Office for National Statistics, TSO (0870 600 5522)
Links: Article (pdf)
Date: 2005-Feb
An article examined the magnitude of inequalities in health by area deprivation in England. Males and females living in the most deprived wards spent twice as many years in poor health, both in absolute (years of life) and relative (proportion of life) terms, than those living in the least deprived wards.
Source: Madhavi Bajekal, 'Healthy life expectancy by area deprivation: magnitude and trends in England, 1994 1999', Health Statistics Quarterly 25, Spring 2005, Office for National Statistics, TSO (0870 600 5522)
Links: Article (pdf) | HDA press release | Guardian report
Date: 2005-Feb
The government published estimates of the percentage of overcrowded households at ward level for the 15 English local authority areas with the highest rates of overcrowding.
Source: Overcrowding in England: Overcrowding at the ward level - Paper 3: Wards in the local areas with the highest levels of overcrowding, Office of the Deputy Prime Minister (web publication only)
Links: Report | Table (Excel file) | ODPM press release
Date: 2005-Jan
Researchers presented the findings of a preliminary investigation into the dynamics of the business population in the 20 per cent most deprived wards in England. The most deprived wards were characterized by decreasing levels of enterprise overall; lower levels of micro enterprises; and higher levels of medium and larger enterprises. But they had higher levels of employment opportunity overall.
Source: Garry Haywood and Jeremy Nicholls, Enterprise Dynamics in the 20% Most Deprived Wards in England, Department of Trade and Industry (web publication only)
Links: Report (pdf)
Date: 2005-Jan