Townsend Deprivation Index#
Last modified: 18 Jul 2025
Townsend Index#
The Townsend index (1989) is a relative indicator of material deprivation, which has been widely used to identify socio‐economic confounding in crime, education, and health research in England. This dataset is a 2021 version of the Townsend Index Jephcote and Gulliver (2025).
1. Summary#
Census Output Area (COA) level, England and Wales
This deprivation index is constructed from four unweighted UK Census variables, which describe the level of total unemployment, overcrowding, private vehicle ownership, and home ownership in each community.
Dataset Descriptor |
Dataset-specific Information |
|---|---|
Name of dataset in TRE |
TOWNSEND_england_wales |
Citation (APA) |
Jephcote, C., & Gulliver, J. (2025). Development and evaluation of rapid, national-scale outdoor air pollution modelling and exposure assessment: Hybrid air dispersion exposure system (HADES). Environment International, 109304. |
Download citation |
|
Owner |
University of Leicester |
Temporal coverage |
2021 |
Geographical coverage |
England and Wales |
Key link |
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Keywords |
Deprivation, Unemployment, Overcrowding, Vehicle ownership, Home ownership |
Participant count |
TBC |
Number of variables |
TBC |
Number of observations |
TBC |
Latest extract date |
TBC |
Specific restrictions to data use |
TBC |
Build a data request |
TBC |
Version |
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1 |
Variables: TBC
2. Metrics#
TBC
3. Version History#
TBC
4. Documentation#
We are currently building a documentation storage system which will host relevant and useful documents related to datasets, groupings, and studies themselves.
5. Useful Syntax#
Below we will include syntax that may be helpful to other researchers in the UK LLC TRE. For longer scripts, we will include a snippet of the code plus a link to the UK LLC GitHub repository where you can find the full scripts.