Health Survey for England, 1991-

This material is held atUK Data Archive

  • Reference
    • GB 1956 HSE
  • Dates of Creation
    • 1991- [ongoing]
  • Name of Creator
  • Language of Material
    • English.
  • Physical Description
    • Electronic data approximately 100 MBs for each year of the survey.
      Most years are available in a number of formats including SPSS, STATA and ASCII tab-delimited. The data can be converted to other formats such as SAS. Each year usually consists of 2 separate data files (one at household level and one at individual level). Data for 1991 and 1992 is available only as one combined data file. Most years are available in a number of formats including SPSS, STATA and ASCII tab-delimited. The data can be converted to other formats such as SAS. Each year usually consists of 2 separate data files (one at household level and one at individual level). Data for 1991 and 1992 is available only as one combined data file. Documentation is primarily supplied in Adobe Acrobat PDF format.

Scope and Content

The Health Survey combines questionnaire answers and physical measurements as well as other objective measures such as analysis of blood samples, ecg readings and lung function tests.

The Health Survey for England contains a 'core' which is repeated each year and each survey year has one or more modules on subjects of special interest.

The 'core' includes:

  • questions on general health and psycho-social indicators
  • smoking
  • alcohol
  • demographic and socio-economic indicators
  • questions about use of health services and prescribed medicines - the focus for these may vary from year to year to suit the modular content of the survey.
  • blood pressure
  • measurements of height, weight and blood pressure

The modules may be about a single topic, several topics or about population groups. The following years included the following modules:

  • 1993 cardiovascular disease
  • 1994 cardiovascular disease
  • 1995 asthma, accidents, and disability
  • 1996 asthma, accidents, and special measures of general health (Euroquol, SF36)
  • 1997 children and young people
  • 1998 cardiovascular disease
  • 1999 ethnic groups
  • 2000 older people, and social exclusion

The lowest geographical identifier in the data is at the level of Health Authority Regions/Districts.

Administrative / Biographical History

The Health Survey for England, sponsored by the Department of Health, is a series of annual surveys about the health of people in England. The Health Survey was first proposed in 1990 to improve information on morbidity by the (then) newly created Central Health Monitoring Unit within the Department of Health. This information is used to underpin and improve targeting of nationwide health policies.

The survey was carried out in 1991-1993 by the Office for Population Censuses and Surveys which is now part of the Office for National Statistics. From 1994 onwards the survey has been carried out by the National Centre for Social Research and the Department of Epidemiology and Public Health at University College London.

Arrangement

Component studies of data series are held and supplied separately, usually as annual datasets.

Access Information

Available to UK Data Archive registered users.

Note

Sources for the information in this record include the UK Data Archive catalogue records and the Department of Health - Health Survey for England web pages.

Record created by Karen Dennison, UK Data Archive.

Other Finding Aids

UK Data Archive web pages:

Conditions Governing Use

Users are required to agree to certain conditions of use, including those governing reproduction and those relating to citation, acknowledgement and disclaimer for publications.

Appraisal Information

All datasets available from the UK Data Archive have been reviewed by an Acquisitions Review Committee.

Accruals

Data will continue to be received on an annual basis for the foreseeable future.

Bibliography

References and publications by principal investigators and resulting from secondary analysis are listed in the UK Data Archive online catalogue records.

Geographical Names

England