People living in England's most deprived neighbourhoods are nearly three times as likely to have diabetes as those in the least deprived. The Health Survey for England 2024 also confirms a substantial undiagnosed share: around one in five cases.
One of five short reports in our Health Survey for England 2024 series, drawing on data published by NHS England in early 2026. The other four are linked at the foot of this page.
People living in England's most deprived neighbourhoods are nearly three times as likely to have diabetes as those in the least deprived. The Health Survey for England 2024, published by NHS England, also confirms that a substantial share of cases, roughly one in five, go undiagnosed.
What the numbers say
Total diabetes prevalence, age-standardised, across the five Index of Multiple Deprivation (IMD) quintiles:
Group | Least deprived | 2nd | 3rd | 4th | Most deprived |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Men | 7% | 15% | 10% | 13% | 17% |
Women | 4% | 3% | 7% | 10% | 11% |
All adults | 5% | 9% | 9% | 12% | 14% |
Of that total, the undiagnosed share, adults whose HbA1c is 48 mmol/mol or above but who have never been told they have diabetes, runs at:
Group | Least deprived | 2nd | 3rd | 4th | Most deprived |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Men | 4% | 4% | 2% | 3% | 4% |
Women | 1% | 1% | 1% | 2% | 2% |
All adults | 2% | 2% | 2% | 3% | 3% |
What that means
The headline finding is the gradient. Move from the least deprived fifth of England to the most, and the share of adults living with diabetes rises from 5% to 14%. For men, the jump is even sharper, from 7% to 17%. The second-quintile figure for men (15%) is high enough to suggest the relationship is not perfectly linear, but the direction of travel is unambiguous.
For women the picture is cleaner. Prevalence almost triples from the least to the most deprived quintile (4% to 11%), with the steepest rise occurring above the third quintile.
The undiagnosed share is smaller in absolute terms but socially significant: 3% of adults in the most deprived areas are living with diabetes without knowing it, compared with 2% in the least deprived. That gap may look small, but layered on top of an already-higher background prevalence it points to a real diagnostic deficit in the places where the condition is most common.
Related reports in this NHS England Health Survey 2024 series
Chronic pain in England has a clear shape, and women carry more of it
Inactive adults are more than twice as likely to feel lonely often
Source: Health Survey for England 2024, NHS England (Table 5). Based on adults aged 16 and over with a valid glycated haemoglobin (HbA1c) measurement. Unweighted base: 3,594 adults across the five IMD quintiles. Figures are age-standardised.
