In order to prioritise parts of the population as being at higher risk and need, we require a method to identify and compare them. The Scottish Index of Multiple Deprivation (SIMD) shows us where Scotland’s most deprived communities are and helps organisations (e.g. Childsmile) plan services around them. The term ‘deprived’ does not just mean ‘low income’ or ‘poor’.
It considers how deprived an area is in seven domains:
- income,
- employment,
- education,
- health,
- access to services,
- crime, and
- housing.
Scotland is split into almost 7000 small areas called datazones. Each has a population of around 750 people. These datazones are ranked from 1 (most deprived) to 6976 (least deprived). The ranked data allows us to:
- Compare the proportion of areas in a health board which are very deprived
- Find areas where many people experience multiple deprivation
- Plan services to support those areas in greatest need
Childsmile uses SIMD to help target services such as fluoride varnish application and dental practice payments.
Childsmile uses SIMD quintiles which divides the populations in to groups of 20% (five equal groups)
