 |
The ONS Longitudinal Study of England and Wales |
The ONS Longitudinal Study of England and Wales
The
Office for National Statistics (ONS) Longitudinal Study consists of an approximate 1% sample of people in
England and Wales. Sample members are chosen by their birthday: anyone born on one of four dates of the year
is included in the study. (Strict confidentiality procedures ensure that sample members cannot be identified.)
The information held about these people comes from their completed census forms, and includes information about
other people in their household (although household members are not followed over time). Additionally, the data
set includes linked information from vital registration systems including births to female sample members, cancer
registrations, death of sample members and death of a spouse.
The ONS Longitudinal Study (LS) may therefore be summarised as 'a record linkage database including individual-level
information from census records and vital registration for approximately 1% of the population of England and Wales'.
The original LS sample was drawn from the 1971 Census on the basis of the four birth dates. Since then information
from the 1981, 1991 and 2001 Censuses has been added to the dataset as well as records of events as they occur.
The sample has been maintained by adding in new births and immigrants with an LS birth date. There are currently
nearly one million individual sample members in the LS database, with over 500,000 sample members present at each
census.
The strengths of the LS are thus:
- Individual-level census information for sample members and people living with them
- Information on births to female LS members and infant deaths
- Information on births of new LS members (including birthweight since 1983)
- Information on deaths of sample members, and spouses of sample members, including cause of death
- Information on cancer registrations to sample members
- Information on the characteristics of the areas in which LS members live
- Sample includes people in institutions (often absent from surveys)
- Sample size large enough to allow longitudinal analysis of small groups, such as people of particular ethnic
backgrounds or residents of small geographical areas
What can the ONS Longitudinal Study tell you?
The LS offers enormous potential to examine a wide range of important social, demographic and health issues.
These include examining differences in mortality and health status; analysing characteristics of migrants
within England and Wales and looking at family and household formation and change.
The availability of data spanning thirty years for original 1971 sample members presents new opportunities
for analysing links between childhood and adult circumstances and for tracking change through mid and later life.
There are also opportunities for intergenerational comparisons, for example, looking at the educational attainment
of adults in 2001 according to characteristics of the parents they lived with in 1971.
The LS has been used to address a wide range of important questions about inequalities in health and mortality,
including cancer survival; social mobility, including variations by ethnic group; internal migration; labour force
participation; family formation, including teenage childbearing and lone motherhood; and care-giving.
How can you use the ONS Longitudinal Study?
The Centre for Longitudinal Study Information and User Support (CeLSIUS) exists to help researchers and students
from UK academic institutions use the LS. This service is free of charge to users. It is the Office for National
Statistics’ policy that the LS should be used as widely and easily as is possible whilst maintaining data
confidentiality.
All analysis of individual records takes place on ONS premises and released information is anonymised and aggregated to
prevent identification of individuals; it is therefore not downloadable in the same way as some other census datasets
although some
specimen LS tables are available.
If a researcher wishes to use the LS an application has to be made, and approved, by the LS Research Board. CeLSIUS can
provide advice on whether the LS is an appropriate dataset for specific research questions, what variables are available
and provide help with getting the project approved. It can help to design an extract of the data, run analyses and create
a dataset on which analyses can be run.
The main outputs are cross-tabulations and aggregated datasets. (There is an online
training module on outputs from the LS).
It is also possible to go to the ONS offices in London to run analyses in person, with guidance from CeLSIUS staff.
More information on how to apply to use the LS is available in the
step-by-step guide.
Non-academic and academic users from outside of the UK users should contact the
Office for National Statistics on +44
(0)20 7533 5190 if they wish to use the LS.
What resources are available?
CeLSIUS provides user support and advice on using the LS for academic users. There is a wide range of resources on
the
CeLSIUS web site including
a
data dictionary,
online
training modules,
downloadable tables and
a
step by step guide to the application process. Help is available to finalise applications to use the LS and then produce the aggregated
data sets or tabulations which are needed, as well as help with more detailed analyses.
What data are available?
Census data:
Data are available from the 1971, 1981, 1991 and 2001 Censuses for LS sample members and other members of their
household. This includes information on:
Age, sex and marital status
Care-giving (2001)
Country of birth
Economic activity
Educational qualifications
Ethnic group (1991,2001)
Family and household type
Health (1991, 2001)
Housing tenure and amenities
Occupation and socio-economic indicators
Place of residence (and change of place of residence)
Religion (2001)
Event data (from vital registration):
Births of new sample members (including birthweight since 1983)
Births to sample mothers (live and still)
Cancer registrations
Deaths of infants born to sample mothers
Deaths of sample members (including cause of death)
Deaths of sample members’ spouses (including cause of death)
Ecological data:
Information on the characteristics of the area in which sample members live is also available including, for example,
population density, urban/rural indicator and deprivation indicator. It is also possible for user-defined ecological
indicators to be added to the data.
Further reading
The following illustrate the range of recent LS research; for a complete list, see the Celsius ls
publications database.
Atkinson, R. (2000) Measuring gentrification and displacement in Greater London, Urban Studies 37:1, pp. 149-165.
Bartley, M. and Plewis, I. (2002) Accumulated labour market disadvantage and limiting long term illness: data from the 1971-1991 ONS Longitudinal Study, International Journal of Epidemiology 31, pp. 336-341.
Blackwell, L. et al (2005) Opportunities for new research using the post-2001 ONS Longitudinal Study, Population Trends, 121, pp 8-16.
Brown, J. et al (1998) Longitudinal study of socio-economic differences in the incidence of stomach, colorectal and pancreatic cancers, Population Trends, 94, pp. 35-42.
Buxton, J. et al (2005) The long shadow of childhood: associations between parental social class and own social class, educational attainment and timing of first birth; results from the ONS Longitudinal Study, Population Trends, 121, pp. 17-26.
Chandler, J. et al (2004) Living alone: its place in household formation and change, Sociological Research On Line, 9:3.
Donkin, A., Goldblatt, P. and Lynch, K. (2002) Inequalities in life expectancy by social class, 1972-1999, Health Statistics Quarterly, 15 (Autumn) pp. 5-15.
Glaser, K., Grundy, E. and Lynch, K. (2003) Transitions to supported environments in England and Wales among elderly widowed and divorced women: the changing balance between co-residence with family and institutional care, Journal of Women and Aging, 15: 2/3, pp. 107-126.
Joshi, H. et al (2000) ‘Putting health inequalities on the map: does where you live matter, and why?’ in: E. Graham (ed.) Understanding Health Inequalities, pp. 143-155.
Platt, L., Simpson, L. and Akinwale, B. (2005) Stability and change in ethnic groups in England and Wales, Population Trends, 121, pp. 35-46.