Irish community health profile

Overview

The Irish community health profile has identified and summarised the national and local evidence relating to the health, lifestyle behaviours, and wider determinants of health that affect the Irish community.

Although the focus of this report was health inequalities among the Irish community in Birmingham, the limited available information on health inequalities has resulted in data being used from the UK and internationally, where available.

Community definition

From the 2021 census, the Irish population may be captured within ethnicity, nationality or country of birth datasets.

Selecting the appropriate way to define the Irish population was challenging and each classification presents limitations.

This profile largely included findings from those that were identified in the 2021 census under the ethnic category ‘White: Irish’.

We acknowledge that this ethnic group category excludes non-White Irish populations. Our latest update to the demographic data collection tool suggests the removal of the ‘White’ prefix.

For more information about how Birmingham City Council is standardising demographic data, see the demographics questionnaire.

A comprehensive breakdown of the population identification methodology is included in the Irish community health profile full report.

Population size

Population size estimates have been taken from the 2021 census for England and Wales, using data by ethnic group (20 category dataset).

  • England and Wales: 507,465 (0.85% of the total population)
  • Birmingham: 16,964 (1.5% of the total population)

Health and wellbeing

To find out more about the health and wellbeing needs, and the identified health inequalities of the Irish population, download the Irish community health profile report.

You can also find an interactive overview of the 2021 census findings for the top 19 ethnic groups, including Irish, on the community profiles dashboard, created by the Birmingham City Observatory.

Available resources

To help you understand more about health inequalities among the Irish community, we have produced several resources, including:

View all Irish community health profile downloads

Webinar

Watch our webinar which provides a summary of the demographics and key health inequalities among the Irish community:

You can switch on subtitles once you have started to play the video. A menu will appear on the video screen.

Page last updated: 9 April 2024

rating button