In this National Centre for Research Methods (NCRM) talk, we hear from Dr Smruit Bulsari, Senior Research Officer at University of Essex. Smruit will present a guide on how to understand and use the English Indices of Multiple Deprivation.
The English Indices of Multiple Deprivation (IMD) is a set of relative measures of deprivation for small areas in England. The indices are calculated by the Ministry of Housing, Communities & Local Government, and they aim to identify levels of deprivation in several different domains such as income, employment, health, education, housing, and crime among others – key things to potentially use when researching dementia an brain health.
The IMD is designed to offer insights into the complexities of poverty and inequality, and it is widely used by local and central government to allocate resources, make policy decisions, and identify areas that require investment or intervention.
The overall IMD is a weighted sum of domain-specific deprivation scores. Each domain has its own set of indicators. For example, the Health Deprivation and Disability domain might include factors like rates of premature death, while the Education domain would include measures like the percentage of people with low educational attainment.
The indices are typically updated periodically, allowing for trends and changes in deprivation levels to be monitored over time. They are valuable not just for policy planning, but also for academic research and public understanding of social issues.
It’s important to note that while the IMD provides a robust measure of multiple forms of deprivation, it is not an absolute measure of poverty. Instead, it shows relative deprivation, meaning it ranks areas in relation to one another rather than providing an objective measure of deprivation.
More guidance from the National Centre for Research Methods.
National Centre for Research Methods
Dementia Researcher
