ABSTRACT
A major use of census data has been the development of measures of small area deprivation. Deprivation indices have had widespread use in public health, local government and academic research. In a variety of settings, we might be interested in knowing whether area deprivation has changed over time including whether a regeneration scheme has had the desired effect or whether health inequalities are increasing or decreasing. However, deprivation schemes are invariably cross-sectional and various census aspects mean that determining change over time is challenging. Nevertheless, methods to address these issues exist along with a recent literature on measuring change in area characteristics over time. This chapter will first give examples of census-based deprivation schemes and their usage. The methods used to measure change in area deprivation over time are then outlined. This is followed by a description of the geographies of change during the five censuses 1971 to 2011 in several case study locations. The chapter concludes with a consideration of the future of deprivation measures with respect to the 2021 Census and the use of administrative data as inputs to deprivation indices.
