The Datum Report

Standing view · health · Plymouth

Health measures in Plymouth have been worsening.

deteriorating, held with established confidence, formed on 5 October 2026 from movements in 2025.

Health measures in Plymouth have been worsening. Adults who are obese was 32.58 in 2023/24 and deaths before age 75, per 100,000 400.82 in 2025, both recorded as unfavourable against the usual pattern for their year. Running the other way, deaths before age 75, per 100,000 was 363.89 in 2024 and the suicide rate, per 100,000 6.83 across 2022 to 2024, both favourable. Hospital admissions for COPD, aged 35 and over, per 100,000 stood at 287.86. The early-death rate reversing, with the most recent reading the worse, is what tips the view.

How this was decided

A view is formed only where the evidence names a figure you can check. Each movement listed as a reason had to be large enough to matter and distinctive in at least one way — unusual against this area's own history, unusual against comparable areas, or sustained over several periods. A movement shared with peers counts for less, because it says something about the country rather than about Plymouth. Where no figure supports a direction we hold no view rather than a hedged one.

The 4 measures that formed this view

MeasurePeriodDirection
Adults who are obese2023/24deteriorating
Deaths before age 75, per 100,0002024improving
Suicide rate, per 100,0002022 - 24improving
Deaths before age 75, per 100,0002025deteriorating

Also published on this topic, but not counted

These figures carry no defensible direction of their own: a rising house price is good news to an owner and bad news to someone trying to buy, so we do not score one as an improvement. They are shown because they are part of the picture, and they did not decide the view above.

MeasurePeriodSeries
Hospital admissions for COPD, aged 35 and over, per 100,0002023/24 —