Carstairs index

Developed by Carstairs and Morris (1991), the Carstairs index is an index of deprivation used in spatial epidemiology to identify Socio-economic confounding. Developed for Scotland it was an alternative to the Townsend Index of deprivation to avoid the use of households as denominators (Elliot, 1997). The Carstairs index is based on four census indicators: low social class, lack of car ownership, overcrowding and male unemployment. Using these variables areas are then split by postcode.