Introduction#

UK LLC neighbourhood datasets cover the natural, built and social environment surrounding a participant’s residential address.

While there is no single generalisable definition of a ‘neighbourhood’, Suttles (1972) has suggested that neighbourhoods exist at three different scales, each having its own predominant purpose or function (Table 1). Suttles’ (1972) work can be used to suggest that a neighbourhood extends from the smallest unit of neighbourhood (‘home area’, which is typically defined as an area within 5–10 minutes’ walk from home) to the largest unit, which is the urban district/region (covering the wider landscape of social, and economic opportunities).

Table 1: Scales of Neighbourhood as identified by Suttles (1972).

As suggested by Kearns and Parkinson (2001), in the ‘Scales of Neighbourhood’, each of the scales can actually perform all of the functions, therefore the distinctions between the scales represent general themes rather than strict categories. In a similar light, the UK LLC neighbourhood datasets are not confined to a specific geographic unit or scale (e.g. Address or Lower Super Output Area) but rather cover the themes of:

• Service provision

• Leisure activities

• Planning

• Housing market

The current UK LLC neighbourhood datasets include:

• Access to Healthy Assets and Hazards (AHAH)

• Greenspace

Please click on each dataset for more information.

Place-based neighbourhood datasets can be useful for research topics that investigate both the environmental and economic determinants of health. For example, research on low food security often incorporates both physical access to food in stores and economic access in terms of food affordability (Dimitri and Rogus, 2014).

Richardson et al.’s (2014) research which found that people living in socioeconomically disadvantaged neighbourhoods had less variety in away-from-home eating options compared to those living in advantaged neighbourhoods. They suggested that disadvantaged populations may be at higher risk to buy the abundant cheap and convenient food retail options that are high in calories, fat, and sugar. Maguire et al. (2017) has also found associations between socioeconomic status and absolute exposure to take away outlets and supermarkets using data from the Fenland Study linked to foodscape metrics, which are a recognised determinant of eating behaviours and may contribute to inequalities in diet.

Availability and access to greenspace has also been found to be associated with physical and mental health. Wan et al.’s (2022) study found that greenspace was strongly associated with lower mortality risks. Their exploratory mediation analysis detected benefits in pathways through reducing air pollution, relieving social isolation and depression, increased physical activity and time spent outdoors, better lung function (FEV1/FVC), and having higher serum vitamin D levels. Other research (Astell-Burt et al., 2014) found that the relationship between greenspace and health can vary across the lifecourse, highlighting the need for longitudinal research to answer why greenspace may be better for health at some points in the lifecourse than others.