Geographical inequalities in England on the eve of the pandemic

This briefing forms part of the Nuffield Foundation funded research programme, Social Policies and Distributional Outcomes in a Changing Britain (SPDO), which examines social policies and social inequalities between the General Election in May 2015 and early 2020, the eve of the COVID-19 pandemic. The analysis presented in this briefing note builds on a previous CASE paper, which highlighted how geographical inequalities extend beyond economic outcomes and are apparent across multiple social policy areas, and argued that focussed attention on examining geographical inequalities is needed. This brief reports on the findings from the programme on geographical inequalities in social policy outcomes, concentrating on small neighbourhood deprivation and English regions, across domains of living standards, education, health, and adult social care. The findings are reported by region and by neighbourhood deprivation separately, since more nuanced analysis of the intersection of region and neighbourhood was beyond the scope of the programme.