Scottish Index of Multiple Deprivation 2020: introduction

Key findings in SIMD 2020

SIMD identifies deprived areas - not people.
The box below shows why.

In this example, 'deprived area' means among the 15% most deprived areas in Scotland. We are using people on low income to represent people who are facing multiple deprivation.

Deep-rooted deprivation – some areas include data zones which have consistently been among the 5% most deprived in Scotland since SIMD 2004. This map shows a selection of those areas, where over two-thirds of data zones are among the 5% most deprived for SIMD 2020.

Six council areas have a larger share of the 20% most deprived data zones in Scotland compared with SIMD 2016. Three council areas have a smaller share. The rest have changed by less than 2 percentage points. SIMD measures relative deprivation, so changes in SIMD rank for one area may be due to other areas becoming more or less deprived.

People who live in the most deprived areas are most likely to experience conditions which limit their opportunities in life.

However, people who live in less deprived areas may also experience disadvantage.

What is local share?

The charts on the right show the proportion of data zones in each area which are among the most deprived. This local share is calculated by dividing the number of deprived data zones in the area by all data zones in this area. We use local shares to compare areas.

For example, the local share of the 40% most deprived data zones in Moray is the number of data zones in Moray that are among the 40% most deprived in Scotland (25 data zones) divided by the number of all data zones in Moray (126). This results in a local share of 20%.

All: local share of 20% most deprived.
Health boards with a local share of 0% are omitted