Story · Curiosities map · about 3 min
Who says their health is bad
One census question asks how your health is in general, on a scale from very good to very bad. It is not a diagnosis and nobody checks it, which is exactly why it is useful: it is how millions of people rated themselves on the same day. This story follows the two worst answers across England, Wales and Scotland.
One person in twenty
Across England and Wales 5.2% described their health as bad or very bad on Census day 2021. Wales answers higher than England, 6.9% against 5.2%, and London lower than either at 4.3%. Health gets worse with age, so part of every difference on this map is simply who lives where.
The valleys of south Wales
The highest council figures in England and Wales are both Welsh: Blaenau Gwent at 10% and Merthyr Tydfil at 9%. These are the old coal and steel valleys, where heavy industry left and the people who worked in it stayed.
And the English coast
Blackpool is the highest council in England at 9%. It belongs to a pattern the map makes plain: seaside towns that took in people with few choices as their holiday trade fell away. At the other end, Wokingham answers 2.7%.
Almost three times as many
England’s 2025 deprivation index, most deprived tenth in dark purple. In that tenth 8.5% of residents answered bad or very bad; in the least deprived tenth 3.0%. That is 2.8 times as many, and the two maps were drawn from different surveys years apart.
Scotland answers higher still
Scotland’s own census, a year later, finds 6.9% answering bad or very bad, above England and Wales, with Inverclyde highest at 9%. A year apart and with their own wording, the two censuses are close but not like for like, so read the gap as a direction rather than a measurement.
For classrooms and curious minds
Questions to talk about, alone or in a group.
- This layer is not adjusted for age. How would an older population change what you see, and how could you check?
- Why might people in two places with the same illnesses still rate their health differently?
Try it on the map: Put median age beside this layer and look for places that answer high without being old.
The figures above are calculated from the datasets listed on Data & sources and are approximate: many map layers are modelled or interpolated. Read each layer’s caveats on the map.