Lifestyle

Risk By Region: How does where you live affect your health?

Whilst we all know that our lifestyles can affect our
health and general wellbeing, there are many other factors that can lengthen or add risk
of shortening our life expectancy. Diet and exercise, career choice, habits (both
good and bad) are just some of day to day life choices that impact upon us.
Often however one of the most commonly overlooked aspects is
where we actually live.

Benenden have recently
launched a new online interactive tool allowing people across England and Wales
to check which major conditions can affect them medically region by region.
This tool allows users to understand the regional differences between the sexes
as well as providing an insight in to potential risk to their own. It uses
national averages based upon occurrences per 1000 people to determine how
likely you are to develop potentially serious medical conditions based upon
your gender and locality.
For example, when searching using our own postcode I
discovered that Skin Cancer is the number 1 High Risk factor to health for females. When
compared to an NE9 postcode in the North East it changes to Mesothelioma (a
form of cancer most commonly associated with exposure to Asbestos). Another
previously lived in of mine in Liverpool gives the greatest risk as being Cancer of
the Liver. Sobering statistics indeed.
Another way to look at it is by percentages. Here’s another
example: a woman living in Cheshire is 21% most likely to be at risk from
Breast Cancer than a woman living in Cambridgeshire. A woman living in Cornwall
is 14% less likely to suffer from heart disease than a woman living in
Merseyside.
 Out of 71 counties in England and Wales, Merseyside ranks 71st
for risk of a medical condition in females with Liver Cancer topping the list. Truly
alarming.
I’d like to point out that the tool itself does not take
assumptions about an individual’s current lifestyle. Rather it is designed to provide
a more informed view of their current approach to health and lifestyle as well
as making people aware of higher risk medical conditions in their area. All of
this is done using the national statistics gathered to build a picture of the
risks across the 71 counties.
Where you live and not just how you live can be a real
deciding factor when it comes to health. It is something people maybe should
investigate a little before deciding upon where they move to, what to be wary
of or how they can make improvements to their health.
I know I will personally be taking sun exposure a lot more seriously now that I’m aware of how a high risk it is for women living in this area of the country, compared to where I actually come from.

The Benenden ‘Risk
by Region’
tool is available via www.benenden.co.uk/risk-by-region/ and it’s well worth checking out should you wish to see the major health risks that are
dominant where you live or may wish to live in the future. 
You may be surprised
by some of the risks you could be unknowingly exposed to.

If you enjoy my blog, please consider following me on Bloglovin’