This statement applies to pophealth.uk, an interactive map of population health across the 33 London boroughs. It covers the map itself, the methodology and technical notes, and this page.
How accessible this site is
Most of the site can be used with a keyboard and with a screen reader. The parts that cannot are listed below, in plain terms, with what to use instead.
These things work:
- Every page can be zoomed to 200% without losing content or function.
- There is a colour-blind safe palette for the map's colours, on the Colour-blind palette button in the toolbar.
- Colour is never the only way a figure is given. Everything shaded on the map is also written as a number in the panel and in the downloads.
- Every control can be reached with the keyboard, and the one with focus is visibly outlined.
- The tool strip and the sidebar tabs behave the way a screen reader is told they will: arrow keys move within them, and each is a single stop on the way through the page.
- Selecting a ward, focusing a borough or a board, and zooming to an area are each announced to a screen reader.
- There is a skip link to the main content on every page.
What is not accessible
The map's areas cannot be reached with a keyboard. The wards, LSOAs (small areas) and boundaries are drawn as shapes that only respond to a mouse or a touch. There are about 1,400 of them on screen at once, and making each one a keyboard stop would put the rest of the page hundreds of presses away.
Everything the map can tell you is reachable another way:
- The search box in the header finds a ward, an LSOA, a GP practice, a pharmacy, a hospital or a charity by name or postcode. Choosing a result does exactly what clicking it on the map does.
- Query lists the wards matching any set of conditions, as a list you can move through and select from.
- The Directory holds every service and organisation on the map in one searchable, filterable list.
- Data export writes the figures for every area to a spreadsheet, so nothing on the map is only on the map.
These are also known to fall short:
- Building a custom area needs a mouse
- A custom area is assembled by clicking LSOAs (small areas) on the map, so it currently cannot be built with a keyboard. Once built it can be sent as a link, which does open for anyone. Data export covers the same figures for published areas without needing the map.
- The map has no dark mode
- The map is drawn in one light colour scheme and does not follow a dark setting on your device. This statement and the methodology page do.
- The map's own background is not described
- Street names, rivers and parks come from OpenStreetMap and are drawn as images. They carry no text alternative. Nothing this site publishes depends on reading them.
- Shading is described in words, not read out area by area
- When the map is coloured by a figure, a screen reader is told what the colours mean and what the range is, but it will not read out all 704 wards. Use Query, the Top and Bottom 20 lists, or Data export to get that as an ordered list.
- Some charts are images of their data
- A few small bar and distribution graphics are drawn rather than written out. Every figure in them appears as a number nearby or in the ward's full profile.
- The printable ward and LSOA reports may not be fully accessible
- The reports open as a separate page for printing or saving as a PDF. Their charts may not have full text alternatives, and a PDF saved from your browser's print dialog may not carry the structure a screen reader needs. The same figures are in the area's profile on the map and in Data export.
- Answers in the Ask panel are written by AI
- The Ask about this data panel answers questions in plain text, and those answers are written by an AI model. They can be wrong or leave things out, so check any figure against the area's profile or the downloads before relying on it. The panel has not been tested with a screen reader in the way the rest of the map has.
Reporting accessibility problems
If you find a problem that is not listed here, or you need something on this site in a different format, email contact@pophealth.uk. Please say which page it was and what you were trying to do. We aim to reply within five working days.
If you ask for information in an accessible format and you are not happy with the response, say so in your reply and it will be looked at again.
Technical information
This site is partially compliant with the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines version 2.2 AA standard, because of the exceptions listed above.
Non-accessible content
The content below is non-accessible for the following reasons.
- The interactive map's areas are not operable by keyboard, which fails WCAG 2.2 success criterion 2.1.1 (keyboard). The alternatives listed above are provided under 1.1.1 as a text route to the same information. We are looking at whether a keyboard mode over a shortlist of areas can be added without making the rest of the page unusable.
- Map tiles carry no text alternative, which fails success criterion 1.1.1 (non-text content). They are decorative context rather than data, and the data is available in text.
How this was tested
The site was checked by hand in a real browser. The contrast of the site's text colours was measured against the WCAG formula, controls were checked for a name a screen reader can announce, images for a text alternative, and the page for one main heading, a main landmark and a language set. Keyboard order and screen-reader behaviour were tried by hand. These checks are not automated: there is no accessibility test that runs each time the site changes.
The site has not been through a formal external audit. This statement is written from the checks described above, and it names what those checks found rather than claiming more than they can show.
What we are doing to improve accessibility
- Looking at a keyboard route into the map itself, most likely over a shortlist of areas rather than all 1,400 shapes.
- Making the custom area builder usable without a mouse, by letting areas be added from a list as well as from the map.
- Turning the checks above into automated tests that run on every change, so a change that breaks one of them fails before it is published rather than after.
This statement was prepared on 17 August 2026. It was last reviewed on
5 October 2026. The site was last tested on 17 August 2026 against WCAG 2.2 AA.
Last updated: 7 October 2026 (the text of this statement; the site has not
been re-tested since 17 August 2026).