South Gloucestershire has been ranked the 18th healthiest place in the country, according the first official national health index.

The county received an overall health score of 103.3, ahead of neighbours Wiltshire, Gloucestershire and Bristol.

Since 2018, the Office for National Statistics has been collecting data on factors which directly and indirectly affect people’s health, including medical conditions, diet, pollution and education.

The results have been organised into one of the first health indexes of its kind in the world.

Breaking down the data, there are huge disparities in the extent to which different factors affect people’s health in South Gloucestershire.

The county comes 5th in the county in road safety and early years development, but 122nd in terms of physical health conditions.

People living in South Gloucestershire are 54th in terms of life satisfaction compared to Gloucestershire which ranked 8th.

They have the 18th highest healthy life expectancy, but also the 110th highest rate of self-harm.

Out of the 149 local authorities which make up England, South Gloucestershire was ranked the 18th in overall health, ahead Wiltshire, which came 22nd, and Gloucestershire, came 26th.

Wiltshire scored 103 and Gloucestershire 102.7, while Bristol was the 100th healthiest with a score of 97.7.

This compares to Wokingham, which was number one with 110.1, and Blackpool, which was deemed the least healthy place in England with a score of 86.4.

The proposal for a Health Index was made in the 2018 annual report of the government’s then Chief Medical Officer Dame Sally Davies The report advocated that data be collected in the following three categories.

Health status or outcomes: mortality or life expectancy, morbidity measures such as disease prevalence, percent reporting general good or bad health. Wider well-being measures such as loneliness could also be considered in this category.

Individual risk factors: these are things which affect health that can be potentially changed at individual level, like smoking, alcohol, diet, exercise and actionable clinical findings such as blood pressure and cholesterol levels.

Wider or social factors: circumstances that have a major effect on life chances that cannot be addressed at individual level, such as unemployment rates, availability of healthy food, quality of transport infrastructure, environmental pollution.