The Healthy and Sustainable Places Data Service (HASP)
Places are complex and constantly evolving. They’re shaped by social interactions, economic activity, nature, history, and culture, all combining to create unique environments. Yet these same places can also reveal stark inequalities – from access to healthcare, mobility and transport to the availability of green space and high-quality affordable food. Smart data provides the opportunity to examine, understand and provide solutions to the challenges facing different places.
Earlier this year Professors Nik Lomax, Mark Birkin, Ed Manley and Michelle Morris launched the Healthy and Sustainable Places Data Service (HASP). Part of Smart Data Research UK, the national programme for smart data research, this £6m data service at the University of Leeds is dedicated to helping researchers use smart data to better understand the health and sustainability of places.
Our Thematic Pillars
These thematic pillars guide our strategy and priorities at HASP:
Mobility - In the UK, increasing active travel could prevent 1,189 deaths per year, while road collisions account for 1,700 deaths.
Lifestyles and food - Promoting healthier, more sustainable diets could result in reduced cardiovascular disease incidence, accounting for 1/4 premature UK deaths.
Place - Risks and outcomes vary between the places in which people live, with socioeconomic status impacting average lifespans.
Data and research in these domains will deliver on reducing inequalities and creating resilient places.
Partnerships
We’re working closely with data owners, researchers and policymakers to utilise diverse and high-quality data in Mobility, Lifestyles and food, and Place.
Partners include: Compass IOT, Mobito, West Midlands Combined Authority and Transport for West Midlands, Nesta, Which? and the Food Foundation.
We currently have data available for research from Zoopla, AirDNA, Compass IOT, Which? and Spectus.
Achievements
Since launching in January 2025, we’ve appointed a professional services team that includes a Service Manager; an operational coordinator; a data science team; and an Impact and Engagement team. Our professional services team are based at the HASP office in Nexus and support our users throughout the research lifecycle.
We have also strengthened our research team with the addition of two internal research fellows, the first external HASP fellow, a cohort of four PhD students and a member of the LIDA Data Science Development Programme. We’ve also secured associated funding through both the Nuffield Foundation and SDR UK Opportunity Fund.
In August we launched our new data catalogue, allowing users to browse, download (open data) and apply (safeguarded and secure) to use our data for research. Since launching the catalogue, we have received over 100 new data requests. Our data tools and resources have also proved popular, with over 7500 new users in 2025.
The team have been on the road at events and conferences across the UK, including presenting research and data tools at the Digital Footprints, GISRUK and Road Safety on 5 Continents Conferences; participating in policy stakeholder events at Holyrood and Westminster; and sharing our work with the public at a series of Public Dialogues with SDR UK.
Case studies
New Data - SIPHER Inclusive Economy
The SIPHER Inclusive Economy dataset is now available via the Healthy and Sustainable Places Data Service.
Designed for researchers and policy actors, the dataset can bolster exploration into economic inclusion, as well as support research into the relationship between inclusive economy policies and wider health outcomes. Thirteen indicators build a holistic picture of economic inclusion encompassing employment, poverty and wealth inequality, cost of living, and physical and digital connectivity. It is further supplemented by demographic and wellbeing variables.
We’ve also made an interactive map of the data available via the Geographic Data Service, enabling a user-friendly and code-free use of the data.
HASP Data Tool - Priority Places for Food Index
In the current cost of living crisis, access to healthy and affordable food has become a critical issue for some families.
The Priority Places for Food Index (PPFI) identifies neighbourhoods across the UK that are vulnerable to increases in the cost of living and are most likely to need support to access affordable, healthy, and sustainable sources of food.
Developed in 2022, as a collaboration between the Consumer Data Research Centre and consumer group Which?, the composite index and interactive map enables policy makers to identify neighbourhoods most in need of support accessing healthy, sustainable, affordable food and understand the factors driving the need in that area. Accessed over 21,000 times by 14,000 users, the PPFI is being used by policymakers, academics, charities, retailers, nutritionists, consumer groups, and educators, across the UK.
The index, which is now hosted and maintained by the Healthy and Sustainable Places Data Service, was constructed using open data across seven domains:
- Proximity to supermarket retail facilities
- Accessibility to supermarket retail facilities
- Proximity to non-supermarket food provision
- Access to online deliveries
- Fuel poverty
- Socio-demographic barriers
- Need for family food support
The PPFI builds on Dr Andy Newing’s work on e-Food Deserts, with additional domains relating to fuel poverty and family food support.
HASP Data Tool - Nutrient Profile Model Calculator
There has been a boom in food environment policy in the UK with the Nutrient Profiling Model at the heart of much of the new legislation.
The Nutrient Profile Model Calculator is a free, transparent, and easy-to-use tool designed to help users calculate Nutrient Profile Model (NPM) scores—without requiring prior expertise in nutrition or food regulations.
We’ve recently updated the calculator to make product assessment more efficient:
1. Users can continue to use the calculator for single product assessments on the go (mobile)
2. You can also now upload a table to calculate the NPM scores for multiple products at once (desktop)
3. We also have an R package available for scalable use across larger datasets
The calculator is being used by policymakers, academics, charities, retailers, nutritionists, and trading standards enforcement officers, across the UK, in their efforts to drive product reformulation and to implement, evaluate and enforce legislation for healthier food environments.