Abstract copyright UK Data Service and data collection copyright owner.
The Health Survey for England is a series of surveys designed to monitor trends in the nation's health. It is commissioned by the Information Centre and carried out by the Joint Health Surveys Unit of the National Centre for Social Research and the Department of Epidemiology and Public Health at University College London.The aims of the HSE series are: to provide annual data about the nation's health;to estimate the proportion of people in England with specified health conditions;to estimate the prevalence of certain risk factors associated with these conditions;to examine differences between population subgroups in their likelihood of having specific conditions or risk factors;to assess the frequency with which particular combinations of risk factors are found, and which groups these combinations most commonly occur;to monitor progress towards selected health targets;since 1995, to measure the height of children at different ages, replacing the National Study of Health and Growth, and to monitor the prevalence of overweight and obesity in children.The survey includes a number of core questions every year but also focuses on different health issues at each wave. Topics are revisited at appropriate intervals in order to monitor change. Further information about the series may be found on the NHS Digital Health Survey for England; health, social care and lifestyles webpage, the NatCen Social Research NatCen Health Survey for England webpage and the University College London Health and Social Surveys Research Group UCL Health Survey for England webpage. Changes to the HSE from 2015: Only the individual data file is now available within the standard End User Licence (EUL) HSE study (see the 2015 EUL study, SN 8280). The household data file is now only included in the Special Licence version, released from 2015 onwards. In addition, the Special Licence individual file contains all the variables included in the HSE EUL dataset, plus others, including variables removed from the EUL version after the NHS Digital disclosure review. The Special Licence HSE is subject to more restrictive access conditions than the EUL version (see Access information). Users are advised to obtain the EUL version before considering an application for the Special Licence version. NHS Digital have issued the following statement on changes to the HSE from 2015:"NHS Digital has recently reviewed how we manage access to survey datasets. In doing this we have sought to strike a balance between protecting the privacy of individuals and enabling maximum use of these valuable, publicly funded data collections. We have thoroughly reviewed our disclosure control measures, including taking advice from experts at the Office of National Statistics. The result is that additional disclosure control measures have been applied to the 2015 survey [onwards] to enable a suitable dataset to be made available through the UK Data Service via end user licence. This involved providing less detail on some aspects, such as geographical classifications, ethnicity and household relationships. To provide greater protection of the answers of children and adults within households it is not possible to identify people within the same household on this dataset."
Main Topics:
Data collection involved an interview, followed by a visit from a specially trained nurse for all those in the core sample who agreed. Question modules covered general health, longstanding illness, average weekly alcohol consumption, smoking, alcohol drinking (heaviest day in last week), consent to data linkage (NHS central register, HES), socio-economic information (sex, age, income, education, employment, etc.) and prescribed medications (recorded at the nurse interview). Additional topics included for 2015 were physical activity (adults and children), social care, doctor-diagnosed hypertension, diabetes, well-being (Warwick-Edinburgh Mental Well-being Scale), fruit and vegetable consumption and use of services. The nurse visit covered height and weight measurement, blood pressure measurement, waist and hip circumference measurement, taking of blood samples for cholesterol and glycated haemoglobin, and taking of adult and child saliva samples.
Multi-stage stratified random sample
Face-to-face interview
Self-administered questionnaire
Clinical measurements
Diaries
Physical measurements and tests
Face-to-face interview: Computer-assisted (CAPI/CAMI)
