The health of south Warwickshire people mapped out in hotspots

Researchers at Imperial College London took data from over a 25-year period to devise the atlas for England and Wales, which is now available online and allows people to find their community’s risk of developing various diseases and conditions, including several types of cancer.

The atlas is broken down to council ward level, but the researchers say it cannot be used to see an individual’s risk - rather, it indicates an area’s health risk, relative to the average for the country.

The data used to create the atlas was collected from the Office for National Statistics and from cancer registries between 1985 and 2009, before being mapped alongside regional variations in environmental factors such as air pollution, sunshine and pesticides, and also adjusted for age and deprivation.

The research shows that there is a lower than average risk of acquiring lung cancer in Whitnash, Brunswick and Warwick West and an average risk of acquiring breast cancer across south Warwickshire.

People in Kenilworth, in Leek Wooton, Lapworth and Claverdon are at a higher than average risk of acquiring skin cancer, while people in Stockton and Napton, Harbury, Radford Semele, across Warwick, north and central Leamington, Cubbington and Whitnash are at a higher-than-average risk of acquiring leukaemia.

The risk of having brain cancer and liver cancer is lower than average across south Warwickshire, with the risk of having liver cancer particularly low in Kenilworth St John’s and Park Hill.

There is a very low risk of acquiring mesothelioma, a rare cancer affecting the lung or abdominal cavity, across south Warwickshire.

But there is a higher than average risk of having heart disease in the Clarendon, Willes and Milverton areas of Leamington and, conversely, a particularly low risk in Warwick West and North and Kenilworth St John’s and Park Hill.

Those living in Stockton and Napton are at particularly high risk of having COPD (chronic obstructive pulmonary disease) and there is a higher than average risk in Bishops Tachbrook, Long Itchington, Fenny Compton, Southam, Stoneleigh and Kenilworth Abbey. But in Warwick South, Whitnash, Leamington Clarendon, Cubbington, Leek Wooton and Kenilworth Park Hill, the risk of acquiring the disease is lower than average, with a particularly low risk in Warwick West and Kenilworth St John’s.

Most of south Warwickshire is at a higher than average risk of acquiring kidney disease, with a very high risk in Cubbington and quite a high risk in Leamington Willes and Milverton.

Pregnant women are at a lower than average risk of having a stillbirth in Budbrooke, Warwick West and South, Leamington Brunswick and Manor and Kenilworth St John’s and Abbey, but at a higher than average risk in Stockton and Napton.

And there is a higher than average risk of giving birth to a baby of low birth weight in Kineton, Harbury, Bishops Tachbrook, Whitnash, all of Warwick, Milverton, Leamington Willes, Whitnash, Radford Semele, Long Itchington and Kenilworth Park Hill.

To see the atlas, visit: www.envhealthatlas.co.uk