Indicators of progress: Definitions, data, baseline and trends information
Annex A: Definition of geographic categories
(1) Definition of Urban / Rural Category:
The urban / rural classification employed in the analyses for the 2002 report is that developed for the Scottish Household Survey. It takes account of both the population (settlement size) and remoteness (measured by drive times).
Using postcode units, households and institutions have been classified as follows:
Large urban areas - settlements over 125,000 population. This covers the city conurbations of Edinburgh, Glasgow, Aberdeen and Dundee.
Other urban areas - settlements of 10,000 to 125,000 people.
Accessible small towns - settlements of between 3,000 and 10,000 people and within 30 minutes drive of a settlement of 10,000 or more.
Small remote towns - settlements of between 3,000 and 10,000 people, who are not within 30 minutes drive of a settlement of 10,000 or more people.
Accessible rural areas - settlements of less than 3,000 people and within 30 minutes drive of a settlement of 10,000 or more people
Remote rural areas - settlements of less than 3,000 people who are not within 30 minutes drive of a settlement of 10,000 or more people.
The classification applied to the data in this report is based on the 2002 postcode index.
This classification has been applied to the analyses where postcode units are available. This methodology is an improvement on that employed in the Technical Report for 2001, which largely used a Local Authority classification. As this new methodology is based on smaller areas, it results in an improved classification into urban and rural areas.
Where possible, the full 6-fold classification has been presented. There are some exceptions to this, which are noted in the milestones. These are:
Milestones 5 and 9 - the SHS 6-fold classifications have been aggregated into:
(a) rural - classed as Small remote towns, Accessible rural areas, and Remote rural areas.
(b) urban - classed as Large urban areas, Other urban areas, and Accessible small towns
Where possible, it is the postcode of the individual that has been used in the classification. However, not all the data sources are at person level. Some data collection is at an institution level. For milestones 3, 9 and 10 data is collected at school level. In these cases it is the postcode of the school which has been used in the urban/rural classification. This also applies too milestone 17, where care institutions (rather than the residents) have been used to disaggregate into urban and rural.
There are five milestones where a different urban/rural classification has been applied. These are:
Milestone 18 and 22 - classifications are based directly on population, as it is not currently possible to apply the SHS classification to the Scottish Health Survey data. In these cases, the following classification has been applied:
- The total population for a given area is found by taking each town and adding each directly adjacent town i.e. those which make up one continuous area. Areas with a population of 100,000 or more are classified as urban. Areas with a population of 99,999 or less are classified as rural.
Milestone 23 - urban and rural classification is based on settlement size only, where the total population for a given area is found by taking each town and adding each directly adjacent town i.e. those which make up one continuous area. Areas with a population of 100,000 or more are classified as urban. Areas with a population of 99,999 or less are classified as rural.
Milestone 13 - classifies Local Authorities as urban or rural.
Milestone 15 - classifies Local Authorities as urban or rural.
(2) Definition of Deprivation Category
In a number of Health indicators the information is presented by deprivation category. The reason for doing this is to give a broad overview of the differences in health between people in the 5 different deprivation categories. It is recognised that the Carstairs and Morris index is a broad measure of deprivation and that the indicators are not necessarily universally applicable, however it is also recognised that the analyses provide results which when considered in the light of the methodology used are informative and relevant.
The Carstairs and Morris index was originally developed in the 1980s using 1981 census data. It is composed of four indicators which were judged to represent material disadvantage in the population. The index also correlates well with a range of health measures. The four indicators are combined to create a composite score. The deprivation score is divided into 5 separate categories, ranging from very high to very low deprivation. The five categories were designed so as to retain the discriminatory features of the distribution of the deprivation score, rather than to ensure equality of numbers between each deprivation category. Some very small postcode sectors were excluded and do not have a score. The index was designed with the expectation that it would be mirrored by direct measurement of household income if that were possible. The four variables are as follows :
Overcrowding : persons in private households living at a density of more than one person per room as a proportion of all persons in private households
Male unemployment : proportion of economically active males who are seeking work
Social class 4 or 5 : proportion of all persons in private households with head of household in social class 4 or 5
No car : proportion of all persons in private households with no car
All the proportions are calculated on the households in a given postcode sector. The Carstairs and Morris scores have been updated for postcode sectors in Scotland by McLoone. Deprivation scores were recalculated by McLoone using the 1991 census information and 1991 postcode configuration, as there had been a restructuring of postcodes in Grampian between 1981 and 1991.
(3) Definition of Social Inclusion Partnership areas:
The social inclusion partnerships (SIPs) cover urban and rural areas and geographic communities of interest, and are multi-agency partnerships to co-ordinate activities to promote social inclusion and prevent social exclusion. Area-based SIPs target specific areas of deprivation and exclusion largely within local authority boundaries. These areas tend to be in the bottom 10% of the most deprived areas in Scotland. The majority of the worst deprivation in Scotland is concentrated in Glasgow, however there are a number of area-based SIPs covering rural areas.
The SIPs used in the analysis of these milestones are area-based SIPs. For statistical purposes, SIPs have been classified at unit postcode level, and are at an aggregate level only (i.e. all SIP areas compared with all non-SIP areas). Further disaggregation is not currently possible.