Where are the Priority Places for accessing affordable food?

Our Key Findings

• The Priority Places for Food Index identifies the neighbourhoods at most risk of food insecurity and where interventions to help people access affordable food will be most valuable. In England, these places are concentrated in the Midlands and the North of England.
• 84% of Westminster constituencies have at least one priority place. Birmingham, Hodge Hill has the highest prevalence of priority places.
• There is a higher prevalence of childhood obesity in priority place neighbourhoods.

Introduction

There are many reasons why people may find it difficult to access affordable food. Some relate to personal circumstances, most obviously low incomes. The poorest 20% of the population spend a higher proportion of their disposable income (14.8%) on food and non-alcoholic drinks, compared with in those on the highest incomes (9.2%). Therefore, those on the lowest incomes will have been more greatly impacted by the recent high rates of food inflation. However, where someone lives will also impact their ability to access affordable food, due to factors such as the level of local retail provision or quality of transport. 

The Priority Places for Food Index (PPFI), developed in partnership with the Consumer Data Research Centre at the University of Leeds, draws together data to identify priority places where interventions to help people access affordable food and their ability to access it will have the most impact. Separate indices have been created for each of the four nations of the UK.

Originally published in 2022, the PPFI has been updated to include the most recent versions of key data sources and incorporating new eligibility criteria and has been remapped to the new census areas for England and Wales. Further detail on the data included in the index and the changes are available in Annex A. In this article, we explore how priority places in version 2 of the PPFI are distributed across the nations. We also compare the index against key health indicators to better understand the relationship between priority places for food and health outcomes.

Priority Places in English Regions 

We define a priority place as a neighbourhood which ranks in the highest 20% in the Priority Places for Food Index. These are the neighbourhoods based on our index where people are likely to face the most serious challenges accessing affordable food and where interventions are likely to be most valuable.

There is a large variation in where priority places are located across regions. In England, the region with the greatest frequency of priority places is the North East, although because this is a small region then there are more priority places in Yorkshire and the Humber, West Midlands and the North West in absolute terms. There are relatively few priority places in London, East of England, the South East and the South West, although in the latter there is a concentration in Cornwall.

 Figure 1: Priority Places in English Regions

In the North of England, the priority places tend to be situated in the larger cities such as Liverpool, Newcastle and Sheffield and they usually have a higher need for family food support and higher levels of fuel poverty compared with regional averages. In the South East and East of England, priority places tend to be located around the coastline. These priority places tend to have poorer online delivery access and poorer access to non-supermarket food provision compared with their regional averages.

Priority Places in Westminster Parliamentary Constituencies

To further explore how priority places are distributed around the UK we have aggregated local areas up to the level of Westminster constituency. 84% of constituencies have at least one priority place but there are 76 constituencies across the UK for which at least half of the constituency is a priority place. In 8 constituencies (6 in England, 1 in Wales and 1 in Northern Ireland) at least three-quarters of the neighbourhoods are priority places.

Table 1 shows a list of the highest ranking constituencies in England, the lists for the other three nations can be found in Annex B. The rankings refer to the ranking within each nation, where 1 is the constituency that has the greatest proportion of local areas that are priority places.

 Table 1: Top 20 English Westminster constituencies with highest proportion of priority places

Relationship to health outcomes

We compare the PPFI index scores against local health indicators to better understand the relationship between PPFI and health outcomes. In the 2021 census, people were asked about their general health. Notably, a lower proportion of people living in priority places reported being in very good or good health compared to lower priority areas, 78% in priority places compared with 86% in the low priority areas. There’s also a higher proportion reporting being in very bad or bad health.

 Figure 2: A lower proportion of people living in Priority Places report being in very good or good health

We also compare the index score against the prevalence of childhood obesity in local areas. Obesity is associated with reduced life expectancy and many health conditions such as type 2 diabetes, cardiovascular disease, liver and respiratory disease and cancer. This makes levels of childhood obesity a good indicator of future health outcomes and it has the benefit of being available at a low level geography.

NHS digital previously found higher rates of childhood obesity in deprived areas. We find a similar result comparing the childhood obesity with the PPFI; there is a higher prevalence of childhood obesity in priority places. On average in priority places over 11% of reception-aged children are obese compared with 8% in the lowest priority neighbourhoods. The difference is more stark for older children. On average over a quarter of Year 6 students are obese compared with 17.4% in the lowest priority areas.

 Figure 3: There is a higher prevalence of childhood obesity in Priority Places in England

Below we hone in on a constituency which has a high prevalence of priority places and poor health outcomes. 

Constituency case study: Easington

75% of local areas in Easington are priority places, and is ranked 6th highest of 533 English constituencies. The constituency has high levels of deprivation - all areas have high need for family food support, relatively high need for fuel poverty and the majority of areas have high socio-demographic barriers. Supermarket accessibility is however relatively good compared with the national average. 

A relatively high proportion of the population reporting being in bad health and a relatively low proportion reporting being in very good health. 

 

Annex A: Priority Places for Food Index

The Priority Places for Food Index has been developed by the ESRC-funded Consumer Data Research Centre at the University of Leeds in collaboration with Which?. It uses data across a range of relevant domains to rank local areas by the likelihood of people living there needing support to access affordable food.

Crucially, the Priority Places for Food Index makes it possible to identify places in need and also to understand why they have been identified, whether because of a lack of retail provision, poor access to online supermarket deliveries, or high levels of deprivation and need. The index has been mapped and can be found here, while technical documentation supporting the index can be found here.

The Priority Places for Food Index is a composite index that is constructed using data from seven different domains and each contains underlying metrics (see Annex table 1). Three of these domains focus on the likely need of individuals in a local area for affordable food and their ability to access it. The domains cover socio-economic barriers (income deprivation  and car access), the likely need for family food support (for example, eligibility for free school meals) and measures of fuel poverty. These three domains are equally weighted in the composite index and together account for 50% of the total score. 

The final four domains relate to the level of access to food retailers in different local areas. These domains are the proximity of supermarket retail facilities, the accessibility of supermarket retail facilities, access to online deliveries and proximity to non-supermarket food provision. These four domains account for the remaining 50% of the total index, with each being equally weighted at 12.5%. 

 Annex Table A1: Domains and metrics used in the index and national variation

In addition to differences in the availability of domain data, neighbourhoods are defined differently across the nations. For England and Wales, these are 2021 LSOAs that have an approximate population of 1,000 to 3,000. For Scotland, the index is based on Datazones which are smaller, with around 800 people on average. In Northern Ireland, the areas are based on Super Output Areas which have an average of around 2,000 people.

Changes in Version 2

For England and Wales, the local areas are now based on the 2021 census. The Children in low income families data replaces Free School Meal eligibility due to changes in the eligibility criteria. Healthy Voucher Uptake is now based on the uptake of the new card voucher scheme. 

The following variables have all been updated to more recent data: Distance to nearest food bank, average distance to nearest large grocery store, count of grocery stores within 1km, distance to nearest non-supermarket retail food store store, count of non-supermarket food store within 1km. 

Annex B: Westminster constituencies with most priority places 

 Annex Table B1: Welsh Westminster constituencies with highest proportion of priority places

 Annex Table B2: Scottish Westminster constituencies with highest proportion of priority places

Annex Table B3: Northern Ireland Westminster constituencies with highest proportion of priority places