Do you live in a healthy postcode? The risk of your area revealed here

Healthiest areas include Central London and Brighton while riskier places include South Wales and the North West.

14:32 25 April 2014

Researchers who claim that your postcode have direct impact on your health condition have created a new online atlas in order to map out the geographical pattern of various diseases across England and Wales. 

 

Users can access the health and environment maps for a locality by putting in a postcode to the online version of the atlas. They will then be given an indication of the health risk for the area relative to the average for England and Wales. 

 

According to the researchers, the healthiest places include central London, North Norfolk, parts of Suffolk, and Brighton and Hove while riskier areas include parts of Yorkshire, North West, and South Wales. 

 

The official website says: ‘The aim of the Atlas is to provide information to assist in the development of hypotheses about the role of environmental factors in chronic disease and to inform public health research and action.’

 

Lead author Dr Anna Hansell from SAHSU in Imperial College London’s School of Public Health, said the atlas was a ‘fantastic tool’.

 

However, Professor Paul Pharoah, Professor of Cancer Epidemiology at the University of Cambridge, said that there is more than environmental exposures when it comes to developing major diseases such as cancer.

 

He said: ‘People should adopt a healthy diet and lifestyle as far as possible.

 

‘This atlas does not enable anyone to judge their individual absolute risk. People should definitely not use this atlas to decide where to live.’

Check out the website here.