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Revealed: the healthiest town in Ireland, according to 2016 Census

FIGURES released by the Central Statistics Office have revealed the town in Ireland with the highest percentage of healthy people.

The 2016 Census was the second in which Irish people were asked to rate their own health.

And according to the results, Malahide has the highest percentage of people (92.5 per cent) who consider themselves to be in either good or very good health.

Carrigaline (92.4 per cent) ranked second and Maynooth was third (91.8 per cent), all well above the national average of 87 per cent.

By contrast, the town where the highest percentage stated that their health was bad or very bad was Longford (2.9 per cent).

When ranked by administrative counties, Dún Laoghaire-Rathdown came top, with 89.9 per cent considering themselves to be in good/very good health.

Neighbouring Dublin City however had the smallest percentage of people (82.8 per cent) who considered themselves in tip-top shape.

(Image: Central Statistics Office)

Other findings from the CSO’s Profile 9 – Health, Disability and Carers report showed that more professionals considered themselves to be in good/very good health (96 per cent), than unskilled workers (83 per cent).

People living in family households were also more likely to report having good/very good health than those living alone.

In the State overall, 59.5 per cent of men felt their health was very good, compared with 59.3 per cent of women.

Since 2011, the number of people with a disability increased by 47,796 to 643,131 in April 2016 – 13.5 per cent of the population.

The Census showed there were 195,263 unpaid carers in the State (4.1 per cent of the population) – an increase of 8,151 on the 2011 figure.

Almost 2 per cent of carers (3,800) were under 15, down 428 (10.1 per cent) from 4,228 in 2011.

Half of children providing unpaid care (1,901) were aged 10 and under, down from 2,170 in 2011.