Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what the statistics are for poverty related death per local area in each of the last five years.

There are no official published statistics on poverty-related deaths. Statistics on deaths from specific causes are based on the medical causes of death recorded on a death certificate, which are coded using the International Classification of Diseases (ICD). Although poverty is included within the ICD it is rarely coded as a cause of death.

Estimates of the number of deaths due to some factors that influence mortality but are not always stated as a cause of death, such as smoking, can be made. However, there is no agreed definition of a poverty-related death for use within Government, and no official statistics on potential numbers.