The Picture of Health is our annual description of the health and wellbeing of the South Tyneside population. It is an update of last year’s Picture of Health report 2024, and includes new data, such as the newly released English indices of deprivation 2025.
This blog post accompanies the slides which can be found here: 2025 – A Picture of Health
Broadly, we have seen emerging positive trends in our breastfeeding rates, lower smoking rates for adults and pregnant women smoking at time of delivery, and fewer childhood injuries. There was also small but positive improvement in male life expectancy, including a reduction in the inequality across the borough. This shows that collaborative and sustained activities on public health can achieve meaningful changes for the people of South Tyneside.
Despite these encouraging trends, there is still work to be done. For instance, the data continues to show that people in South Tyneside have poorer health and wellbeing compared to England. A big reason for this is the high levels of poverty and deprivation. This affects both people and their communities, causing more people to be out of work, and have fewer opportunities to thrive.
This is why it is vital we continually explore and analyse data like Office for Health Improvement and Disparities (OHID) Health of the region data explorer, English indices of deprivation 2025 – GOV.UK, and Population estimates – Office for National Statistics. By understanding the underlying trends and challenges, we can design and deliver services and interventions that target the root causes of poor health and wellbeing and create more opportunities for people to live healthy and fulfilling lives.
Population Change
The Office for National Statistics estimates that South Tyneside’s population grew by 0.8% between mid-2023 and mid-2024; that’s 1,269 more people.
- Total population (mid-2024): 151,393
- Older population: People aged 65+ now make up 21.5% of the population, up from 19.7% in 2015.
This growth is modest, but the aging trend is clear with over one in five residents aged 65 years old and over.
Early development
The prevalence of mothers breastfeeding at 6-8 weeks is the highest it has ever been in South Tyneside for 2024/25. However, the proportion of mothers breastfeeding at 6-8 weeks remains significantly lower than the national prevalence.
- Mothers breastfeeding at 6-8 weeks (2024/25): South Tyneside: 35.3% | England: 55.6%
South Tyneside has significantly higher rates of infants receiving a 6–8-week review for 2024/25.
- Infants receiving a 6–8-week review (2024/25): South Tyneside: 95% | England: 82%
Index of multiple deprivation 2025
The Index of Multiple Deprivation 2025 shows that nearly half of South Tyneside residents live in the 20% most deprived areas in England.
Key patterns include:
- More deprived areas have higher proportions of under-16s.
- These areas have lower proportions of people aged 65+.
Violence Prevention & Substance Misuse
South Tyneside faces significantly higher rates than England for violent crime-related hospital admissions, drug misuse deaths, and alcohol-related hospital admissions.
- Violent crime hospital admissions (2022–2024): South Tyneside: 67 per 100,000 | England: 34 per 100,000
- Deaths from drugs misuse (2021–2023): South Tyneside: 9.5 per 100,000 | England: 5.5 per 100,000
- Admission episodes for alcohol-related conditions (2023/24): 2,921 per 100,000 | England: 1,824 per 100,000
Tobacco Control
Smoking remains a challenge in South Tyneside, despite this the rate of mothers smoking at time of delivery is the lowest on record showing significant improvement:
- Mothers smoking at delivery (2024/25): South Tyneside: 8.6% | England: 6.1%
- Adults in routine/manual jobs (2023): South Tyneside: 22% | England: 20%
- Adults with long-term mental health conditions (2023): South Tyneside: 26% | England: 25%
- Smoking prevalence (15+ years old) (2024/25): South Tyneside: 14.9% | England: 13.5%
Smoking rates are slightly above national averages, especially among vulnerable groups.
Mental Health & Wellbeing
- School pupils with social, emotional, and mental health needs (2024/25): South Tyneside: 5% | England: 4%
- Emergency hospital admissions for self-harm (2023/24): South Tyneside: 262 per 100,000 | England: 117 per 100,000
Life Expectancy
Life expectancy has improved for men but remains the same for women for 2021-23:
- Men: 76.7 years (2.4 years below England)
- Women: 80.8 years (2.3 years below England)
Healthy life expectancy at birth has decreased for both males and females as of 2021-23.:
- Men: 56.4 years (5.1 years below England)
- Women: 57 years (4.9 years below England)
Gap in life expectancy by deprivation:
- Females: 8.7 years
- Males: 11.3 years
While overall life expectancy is slowly improving, healthy life expectancy is falling, meaning people are living longer but spending more years in poor health.
Summary
The Picture of Health is part of our ongoing data monitoring and analysis to further our understanding of the challenges and opportunities to improve health and wellbeing in South Tyneside and tackle inequalities. This helps us to direct our resources to where they are needed most.
This year we launched a Sustainable Food Action Plan, culminating in a Food Summit, aimed at making local food production and consumption more sustainable. Our strategy to tackle Loneliness and Social Isolation was announced at an exciting networking event, and South Tyneside Council’s Alcohol Harm Reduction Strategy was also launched, which outlines the Council’s commitment and strategy to tackling the problems caused by alcohol.
We continue to tackle tobacco-related harms through a range of supportive approaches to quit smoking. This also includes funding community-based projects to expand our smoking cessation options and develop bespoke support for those with high-needs to help more people quit.
The emerging improvements in our breastfeeding, smoking rates and changes in male life expectancy shows that these complex issues can be addressed. We remain committed to creating a community where residents live healthy, happy, fulfilled lives. You can hear more about our upcoming campaigns, updates on new and existing projects, success stories and challenge some public health myths by signing up to our quarterly Healthier Times – Public Health newsletter.
Other resources
If you are interested in exploring health and wellbeing intelligence further here are some more resources:
Our Data Observatory offers a variety of themed reports including topics like Health & Social Care, Population, Deprivation and more.
Our council site holds our monthly intelligence updates which contain brand new data releases from a variety of sources.
OHID provides both the Picture of Health tool and Fingertips, both of these are tools updated regularly with many different indicators.
You can also contact the Public Health Knowledge and Intelligence team using:
public.health@southtyneside.gov.uk