COVID-19 Health Impact Assessment

The impact COVID-19 has had on the residents of Hampshire from the start of the pandemic to October 2021

On the 11 March 2020 the World Health Organisation declared COVID-19 a pandemic. SARS-CoV-2 is a newly emergent virus causing COVID-19 disease, and even now there is still much more to understand. 

The impacts of COVID-19 will be felt for many years, and some may still not yet be realised. Over a year on, these reports look at the impact COVID-19 has had on the residents of Hampshire.

Hampshire Covid-19 Health Impact Assessment October 2021

This report provides a retrospective view of what the pandemic has meant to our local populations, reviewing national guidance and policy to date and what the potential impacts have been and will be on our populations.  COVID-19 has exposed, exacerbated, and created health and social care needs and new inequalities. People across the UK, and indeed the world, have been harmed by the virus in very different ways. 

Both the first and second waves of the pandemic have brought challenges. We need to understand how the effects have disproportionally affected different population groups (age, gender, ethnicity, occupations, co-morbidities, deprivation) and how we minimise the negative impacts and maximise the positive benefits. 

Hampshire Covid-19 Business Vulnerability Index

To help understand how the indirect impacts have affected our communities, a business vulnerability index has been developed.

This compiles datasets from a range of sources identified from statistics and literature published during the first and second waves of COVID-19 in 2020. It provides an assessment of the relative impacts during the pandemic across the area.

The indicators aim to capture the employee and business aspects of the impacts which arose from the COVID-19 pandemic restrictions. The sector, size, mobility of customer and location of a business were found to determine the vulnerability of a business, with the impacts of the pandemic disproportionately affecting physical and small businesses, with online and larger firms being more likely to survive.

Hampshire Covid-19 Mental Health and Wellbeing Index

To help understand how the indirect impacts have affected our communities, a mental wellbeing index has been developed.

This compiles datasets from a range of sources identified through statistics and literature published throughout the first and second wave of COVID-19 in 2020. The population groups who were affected most by the non-pharmaceutical interventions during the early stages of COVID-19 may not have had any mental health challenges before COVID-19. They may not live in areas typically associated with poor mental health (such as areas with high levels of socio-economic deprivation). Regardless, there is evidence that aspects of the restrictions could have taken a toll on their mental health.

The Index includes measures on:

  • Demographics: young people aged 16-24 (most likely to be furloughed, and reported greater levels of loneliness), ethnic minority groups (most likely to experience anxiety around contracting COVID-19 due to employment sector, disproportionately high rates of poor health outcomes from COVID, more likely to live in overcrowded or multigenerational housing, and less likely to have access to green space)
  • Health: people with 2 or more long term health conditions (most likely to feel anxiety about contracting COVID and more likely to be shielding)
  • Economic: low earners (more likely to be furloughed, increased financial stress), people employed in either health care or industries most impacted by furlough (accommodation, food service, arts, entertainment and recreation), people who are self-employed (may not have received financial support if criteria not met)
  • Living situation: lone parent households with dependent children (balancing home working and schooling, financial stress), renters (more likely to be lower earners, younger and experience loneliness), single member households aged 65+ (loneliness), people living in institutions or communal establishments (such as prisons, care homes or hospital