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Bolton's violence prevention strategy

Bolton's violence prevention strategy 2024-27 is now available to view

Dementia in Bolton

Outputs from an in depth piece of work on dementia in Bolton are now available.

Access a range of local boundaries and geographies!

Check out the Geographies page of this website to see the range of geographies in use locally and download files for your own use. Includes a Bolton postcode lookup (giving geographical location of postcodes and which geographies they fall within) and a range of local boundary files in a variety of file formats.

Census 2021

The census provides an invaluable source of information on the population relating to a wide range of topics. Because (nearly) everyone fills it in, you can get information from it about very small areas.

Census resources:

  • Census maps - easy to use tool for viewing census data in a map format for various types of geographies
  • build a custom area profile - easy to use tool that lets you build a custom geography (or use existing ones) and see how various census data compares for your area and a comparator, such as England or the rest of Bolton.
  • Origin-destination explorer - for people moving house and commuting to work (pandemic will impact commute data)
  • Create a custom dataset - look at how several factors vary together in a combination you select and download as a dataset.
  • NOMIS - download pre-made tables of current and previous census data.
  • How life has changed in Bolton - the ONS has produced a series of reports looking at changes since the previous census at local authority level.
  • The ONS website provides informatation on exising and upcoming releases from the 2021 and previous censuses.

Census briefings:

Nugget of the week | morsel of the month

9th April 2025

In 2022, 680 wedding ceremonies took place in Bolton, of which 22 were to same sex couples

  • This week we take a look at the equalities page of this website, which is under ‘Our people’. This week’s nugget is taken from the newly published equalities infographic which you can find linked off Bolton Council's equality downloads at the top of the page.
  • Public sector bodies have a duty to take due regard to the impact and potential impact on all people with protected characteristics in shaping policy, delivering services, and in relation to their own employees. We need to think carefully about this, as offering everyone the same opportunity is not truly fair if other factors mean that some people are less able to take it up or benefit from it.
  • The equalities page gives information about the different groups of people we have in our Bolton community, to help you compare with who does and doesn’t access and use your services, and the experiences they have.
  • Health inequalities are unfair and avoidable differences in health across the population, and between different groups within society. These often cut across protected characteristics and include impacts on how long people are likely to live, the health conditions they may experience and the care that is available to them.
3rd April 2025

43% of Bolton 5 year olds have visually obvious dental decay, amongst the worst in England

  • This week we look at the children & young people page of this website.
  • You can find this week’s nugget in the Fingertips child and maternal health profile, the top link under ‘the Bolton picture’. This profile gives lots of useful information, so you’ll need to make sure ‘oral health’ is selected under ‘topic’.
  • Bolton is also worse than England in the proportion of 5 year olds who have decayed, missing or filled teeth. This is usually abbreviated as dmft – the use of lowercase means it refers to baby teeth, if it was adult teeth it would be written DMFT.
  • Tooth decay is the most common oral disease affecting children and young people in England, yet it is largely preventable. Tooth decay can cause problems with eating, sleeping, communication and socialising, and results in at least 60,000 days being missed from school during the year for hospital extractions alone. Tooth decay could be prevented by cutting down on sugar, as well as brushing teeth with fluoride toothpaste.
26th March 2025 - morsel of the month - March

62% of Bolton adults are active enough for their health – worse than England. 58% of Bolton young people are active enough for their health – better than England

  • This month we take a look at the physical activity page of this website, which you can find under ‘Our place’ -> ‘Lifestyles and behaviours’.
  • The nugget takes a look at some of the key themes in Bolton’s Active lives strategy, which aims to create an environment where people are more active in their daily lives, and some of the inequalities our residents face in doing so.
19th March 2025

In 2022, the borough of Bolton produced 1.2 million tonnes of CO2e (Carbon dioxide equivalent). The largest source of emissions was transport (39%), followed by domestic usage (31%). Industry (12%), commercial (9%), waste (4%), public sector (4%), and agriculture (2%) also contributed.

  • There is clear evidence that climate change is already happening, but if we take action now, there’s a good chance that we can limit, adapt to and manage these changes.
  • The climate emergency has a number of potential impacts for population health. This includes direct health impacts (e.g. illness from heat, flooding, or air pollution) and indirect impacts from the responses taken to mitigate the climate emergency. These indirect impacts could have positive or negative health impacts.
  • The climate page contains sections linked to Bolton’s climate strategy themes on: CO2 emissions; Climate adaptation; Transport; Buildings; Natural environment; Air quality; Skills, Employment and innovation. Climate is a very cross cutting topic, so you’ll also find links to other pages where relevant.
  • Check out the climate emergency page to find out more.
12th March 2025

Life expectancy for Bolton is around 2 years less than England for both males and females (2021-23). Life expectancy varies across Bolton by 15 years for males and 10 years for females (2016-20).

  • Life expectancy at birth is an important overall measure of population health and inequalities in health. It’s not a prediction for individuals, but a summary measure that shows how the population as a whole is doing at a point in time.
  • Life expectancy at birth for Bolton as a whole for males is 76.7, compared with 79.1 for England; for females Bolton life expectancy is 81.3, compared with 83.1 for England as a whole (2021-23).
  • The lowest small area life expectancy at birth for males in Bolton can be found in ‘Central Bolton’, at 70.3 years; the highest male life expectancy is in ‘Dunscar & Egerton’ at 85.2 years. For females, the lowest life expectancy is to be found in ‘Breightmet North’ at 77.1 years; the highest female life expectancy is in ‘Dunscar & Egerton’ at 87.0 years. The link between disadvantage and life expectancy is well documented. People living in more affluent areas live significantly longer than people living in deprived areas.
  • From 2011, increases in life expectancy slowed after decades of steady improvement, prompting much debate about the causes. Then in 2020, the Covid-19 pandemic was a more significant turning point, causing a sharp fall in life expectancy the magnitude of which has not been seen since World War II. We have seen some improvement in our life expectancy since then, but still not recovered to the levels last seen in the mid 20-teens.
  • Check out more about life expectancy (& different types of life expectancy) on the JSNA life expectancy page.
5th March 2025

Rates of overweight and obesity have increased at global and regional levels, and in all nations. No country to date has successfully curbed the rising rates of adult overweight and obesity.

  • This is our first guest nugget from Chris! He's looked through the research that was published in the Lancet that’s been in the news and related it to some Bolton data.
  • Global, regional, and national prevalence of adult overweight and obesity, 1990–2021, with forecasts to 2050: a forecasting study for the Global Burden of Disease Study 2021
  • We need to go beyond acknowledging the issue of excess weight: more aggressive and targeted measures are required to address this crisis, as obesity is one of the foremost avertible risks to health now and in the future and poses an unparalleled threat of premature disease and death at local, national, and global levels.
  • The highest age-standardised prevalence of overweight and obesity was seen in countries in Oceania and north Africa and the Middle East, with many of these countries reporting obesity rates of over 80% in adults.
  • With ongoing surges in obesity among children and adolescents around the world, adult overweight and obesity is expected to grow.

Bolton's obesity rates:

  • 22% of reception aged children (age 4-5) In Bolton are overweight or obese; similar to the national rate, this has stayed relatively stable.
  • 38% of year 6 pupils (age 10-11) in Bolton are overweight of obese; significantly higher than the rate for England - this has been rising since 2006/07.
  • 65% of adults are overweight or obese in Bolton, slightly higher than England, slightly lower than the North West. Bolton mirrors a nationally increasing trend since 2015/16.
  • For 2023/24, there are around 44,000 patients (all age) on Bolton's GP obesity register 57% are female and the remaining 43% male. Obesity rates are highest in the neighbourhoods of Bolton South, Central South and Bolton West.
  • Adults with obesity have higher risks for stroke, heart disease, many types of cancer, premature death, and mental illness such as clinical depression and anxiety
  • You can find out more about excess weight in Bolton on the JSNA healthy weight page which you can find under ‘our place’ -> ‘lifestyles and behaviours’.
26th February 2025 - morsel of the month - Febraury

With a good sample of 380 people you can get a reasonable estimate of Bolton views, with a good sample of 1000 people you can get a robust estimate. Have you checked out the GM residents’ survey?

19th February 2025

61% of Bolton women aged 16-64 are in work, and 70% of men – both lower than the North West and Great Britain as a whole. People who are economically inactive (not in work or seeking work) are most likely to be long term sick or looking after family/ home.

12th February 2025

45% of Bolton children (33,000 individuals) live in poverty. This puts Bolton 12th highest local authority (out of 361) in the country.

5th February 2025

Nearly half (49%) of residents of Queens park and central ward have no cars or vans in their household; over two-thirds (72%) rent their home; and 2 in 7 (28%) live in a one bedroom property. These figures are all much higher than for Bolton as a whole.

29th January 2025 - morsel of the month - January

Many Bolton 65+s hold no formal qualifications. 51% of women and 32% of men aged 65 and over living in Bolton hold no formal qualifications (Census 2021) - this is a nugget taken from this months's age friendly morsel

22nd January 2025

In January 2025, there are 333,498 people registered with Bolton GP practices. From an earlier nugget of the week, you may remember that this is about 1 Toughsheet stadium higher than the Bolton population (302,383). This is the pattern we generally see in Bolton, with more registered patients than residents.

15th January 2025

15% of Bolton residents smoke, down from 24% in 2011. Bolton used to have worse smoking rates than England as a whole, but our rates are now similar.

Find out more about smoking and other health behaviours on the Lifestyles and behaviours page

8th January 2025

Bolton’s population is now over 300,000

Find out more about Bolton’s population and how it’s forecast to change on the Population page

JSNA webinars

Webinar 2 - inequalities

Bolton’s JSNA can be found on www.boltonjsna.org.uk and contains a wealth of information about the Bolton population, their current health, and the wide range of factors that affect health such as the physical and social environment people live in. This will be of use to people who need to consider information about Bolton in funding bids, service recommissioning, student projects, or equality impact assessments. Join this session to: Discover how an intelligence informed approach helped targeting of activities aimed at increasing Covid vaccination uptake where it was lowest; increase your understanding of the Indices of Multiple Deprivation, a core dataset for understanding small area socio-economic inequality, and resources about this on the JSNA website; and find out more about inequalities in relation to Bolton’s climate emergency.

Webinar 1 - what is the JSNA & how can I use it?

Bolton’s Joint Strategic Needs Assessment (JSNA) is a statutory assessment of the current and future health and care needs of the Bolton population. Join this session for a guided tour of the JSNA website, and to hear about how it’s been used in relation to Bolton’s Fund community grants scheme and Bolton’s equality strategy.

  • 22% of reception aged children (age 4-5) In Bolton are overweight or obese; similar to the national rate, this has stayed relatively stable.
  • 38% of year 6 pupils (age 10-11) in Bolton are overweight of obese; significantly higher than the rate for England - this has been rising since 2006/07.
  • 65% of adults are overweight or obese in Bolton, slightly higher than England, slightly lower than the North West. Bolton mirrors a nationally increasing trend since 2015/16.
  • For 2023/24, there are around 44,000 patients (all age) on Bolton's GP obesity register 57% are female and the remaining 43% male. Obesity rates are highest in the neighbourhoods of Bolton South, Central South and Bolton West.
  • Adults with obesity have higher risks for stroke, heart disease, many types of cancer, premature death, and mental illness such as clinical depression and anxiety
  • You can find out more about excess weight in Bolton on the JSNA healthy weight page which you can find under ‘our place’ -> ‘lifestyles and behaviours’.
    • This is our first Guest nugget from Chris! He's looked through the research that was published in the Lancet that’s been in the news and related it to some Bolton data
    • Global, regional, and national prevalence of adult overweight and obesity, 1990–2021, with forecasts to 2050: a forecasting study for the Global Burden of Disease Study 2021
    • We need to go beyond acknowledging the issue of excess weight: more aggressive and targeted measures are required to address this crisis, as obesity is one of the foremost avertible risks to health now and in the future and poses an unparalleled threat of premature disease and death at local, national, and global levels.
    • >
    • The highest age-standardised prevalence of overweight and obesity was seen in countries in Oceania and north Africa and the Middle East, with many of these countries reporting obesity rates of over 80% in adults.
    • With ongoing surges in obesity among children and adolescents around the world, adult overweight and obesity is expected to grow.
      • 22% of reception aged children (age 4-5) In Bolton are overweight or obese; similar to the national rate, this has stayed relatively stable.
      • 38% of year 6 pupils (age 10-11) in Bolton are overweight of obese; significantly higher than the rate for England - this has been rising since 2006/07.
      • 65% of adults are overweight or obese in Bolton, slightly higher than England, slightly lower than the North West. Bolton mirrors a nationally increasing trend since 2015/16.
      • For 2023/24, there are around 44,000 patients (all age) on Bolton's GP obesity register 57% are female and the remaining 43% male. Obesity rates are highest in the neighbourhoods of Bolton South, Central South and Bolton West.
      • Adults with obesity have higher risks for stroke, heart disease, many types of cancer, premature death, and mental illness such as clinical depression and anxiety.
      • You can find out more about excess weight in Bolton on the JSNA healthy weight page which you can find under ‘our place’ -> ‘lifestyles and behaviours’.
      • This month’s morsel links to the Useful websites page of the JSNA website, which gives some further resources you might find useful for finding and using data, evidence, and intelligence.
      • Resident voice - morsel of the month
      • This morsel gives a whistlestop tour of some of the ways you or others might gather information about resident voice, and things to consider when using information from them.
      • The JSNA is all about intelligence that is used to make better decisions! Having confidence about how intelligence is gathered, its strengths and challenges, gives us confidence about how we use it. All kinds of approaches have different strengths, understanding a little can help us use the right tool for the job.
      • In honour of the half term holiday, today we’re looking at the JSNA work page
      • These figures are from Bolton’s labour market profile which you can find under ‘the Bolton picture’ on the JSNA work page.
      • Being in work is better for your health than being out of work. Unemployment is bad for your health, but a bad working environment may contribute to poor health.
      • Healthy staff are more productive, take less time off sick, and do not necessarily need to retire early. An unhealthy workforce negatively impacts our economy and society
      • Find out more about work and health on the JSNA work page
      • This week we look at the deprivation & poverty page of the JSNA
      • The End Child Poverty coalition calculates figures for local authority and parliamentary constituency for child poverty, the latest are from 2022-23. You can find a link to this under poverty -> ‘specific types of poverty’.
      • Of our 3 parliamentary constituencies, the highest levels are seen in Bolton NE (50%) and Bolton SE & Walkden (49% - contains part of Salford). Although lower in Bolton W it still reflects over a third of children in poverty (38% - contains part of Wigan).
      • Many areas around the North West of England have seen increases in child poverty since 2015.
      • In response to this and other related challenges Bolton has developed a Tackling Poverty Strategy, which you can also find linked off this page.
      • This week we take a look at the neighbourhoods page of the JSNA website, your one stop shop for small area information.
      • Looking at smaller areas can help you identify similarities and differences, help you decide which areas might be best to target for your projects, and understand how differences between areas might mean you need to take a different approach for them. Lots of information is only available at Bolton level, so we’ve gathered this set of resources to help you find those that are available at more granular level. Do you know of something you think others would find useful that we haven’t got?
      • The nuggets above come from the 2021 census, a key source of information, particularly on small areas because (almost) everyone fills it in. This means we can dig down much further than we usually can from more frequently updated sources and still get robust insights.
      • You can find ‘pre-prepared area reports’ for all Bolton wards on the neighbourhoods page under ‘Useful resources for other types of small areas’
      • If the area you want insights for isn’t pe-prepared, you can make your own! The neighbourhoods page also links you to the census tools we’ve found most useful.
      • This month’s morsel is a sneak peek from the soon to be launched Bolton Age Friendly strategy, which has been co-produced with older people and partner organisations working with older people.
      • The morsel gathers together a snapshot of information about the topics that older people wanted the strategy to focus on, to set the context for the strategy and the actions that will run from it.
      • Feel free to reuse this morsel, but please credit Bolton JSNA and link to the ageing well page of this website when you do.
      • Check out the ageing well page for more information and data about ageing well and older people in Bolton.
      • This week we explore the ‘GP practices’ section of the JSNA website.
      • NHS Digital produces a wealth of dashboards and data about GP practice activity, which you can find from the GP practices page under ‘The Bolton Picture’ -> general practice data hub. This nugget comes from the first link on this page Patients registered at a GP practice
      • In NHS-land, Bolton is an ‘ICB sub location’, our code is 00T (zero zero T)
      • Now you can explore Bolton data from NHS sources!
      • Smoking is the most important cause of preventable ill health and premature death in the UK and one of the main causes of health inequalities.
      • If you look at this chart from the Office of Health Inequalities and Disparities (OHID)’s fingertips tool (which has lots of other useful information on it), it shows how smoking levels have changed over time in Bolton compared to England as a whole.
      • These figures come from survey data, surveys can’t ask everyone as this would be impractical and expensive. Instead a sample of people with similar characteristics to the population as a whole are asked, and statistics are used to tell what is a real difference what and might just be a fluctuation.
      • Yellow indicates that Bolton is similar to England, red that Bolton is worse than England, green would indicate that Bolton is better than England.
      • The latest estimates (mid 2023) give Bolton’s population as 302,383
      • This would fill the toughsheet stadium 10½ times over (stadium capacity 28,723)
      • 2½ stadiums would be full of children under 18
      • A further 2 stadiums would be full of older adults aged 65+