WARNING 08/01/2026: Please note that this project is not currently being actively maintained. Some functions may no longer work.

Next scheduled review date: 08/01/2027 QA status: Package is currently failing some tests.

fingertips_py

This is a python package to interact with OHID's Fingertips data tool. Fingertips is a major repository of population and public health indicators for England. The site presents the information in many ways to improve accessibility for a wide range of audiences ranging from public health professionals and researchers to the general public. The information presented is a mixture of data available from other public sources, and those that are available through user access agreements with other organisations. The source of each indicator presented is available using the get_metadata_for_indicator() function.

This package can be used to load data from the Fingertips API into python for further use.

Installation

This packaged should be installed using pip:

pip install fingertips_py

Or it can be compiled from source (still requires pip):

pip install git+https://github.com/dhsc-govuk/fingertips_py.git

Usage

fingertips_py should be imported and used in line with standard python conventions. It is suggested that if the whole package is to be imported then the following convention is used:

import fingertips_py as ftp

The package returns data in a variety of types dependent on the function.

For more information on any function, you can use:

help(*fingertips_py function name*)

Or you can view the documents here.

Example

This is an example of a workflow for retrieving data for the indicator on Healthy Life Expectancy at Birth from the Public Health Outcomes Framework profile.

import fingertips_py as ftp


phof = ftp.get_profile_by_name('public health outcomes framework')
phof_meta = ftp.get_metadata_for_profile_as_dataframe(phof['Id'])
indicator_meta = phof_meta[phof_meta['Indicator'].str.contains('Healthy')]
print(indicator_meta)

    Indicator ID                                          Indicator  ...   
0          90362            0.1i - Healthy life expectancy at birth  ... 
55         92543  2.05ii - Proportion of children aged 2-2½yrs r...  ...

We can see that the Healthy life expectancy at birth indicator has an id of 90362. The data for this indicator at all geographical breakdowns can be retrieved using get_data_for_indicator_at_all_available_geographies()

healthy_life_data = ftp.get_data_for_indicator_at_all_available_geographies(90362)

Licence

This project is released under the GPL-3 licence.