Largescale, crosssectional government datasets research published and recent developments'

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Large-scale, cross-sectional government datasets
research published and recent developments.

• Jo Wathan
• Data Support
• Economic and Social Data Service (Government)
• Cathie Marsh Centre for Census and Survey
  Research
• University of Manchester
• UK
• Jo.wathan_at_manchester.ac.uk
• http//www.esds.ac.uk/government

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ESDS Government

• Economic and Social Data Service is the leading
  data dissemination and support service for social
  data in the UK. Started Jan 03
• Distributed service, involving 4 organisations at
  2 sites in the UK
• ESDS Government is one of 4 specialist services.
  It deals with large-scale cross-sectional
  continuous surveys
• Academic service funded by Economic and Social
  Research Council
• Data archiving and dissemination done by the UK
  Data Archive (download/Nesstar)
• User support and outreach done by the Centre for
  Census and Survey Research
• Data comes from the Office for National
  Statistics or National Centre for Social Research

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Which surveys?

• General Household Survey
• Labour Force Survey
• Family Resources Survey
• Expenditure and Food Survey (previously the
  National Food Survey and Family Expenditure
  Survey)
• ONS Omnibus Survey
• National Travel Survey
• Time Use Survey
• British Crime Survey/Scottish Crime Survey
• British Social Attitudes/Scottish Social
  Attitudes/Northern Ireland Life Times/Young
  Peoples Social Attitudes
• Health Survey for England/Wales/Scotland
• Survey of English Housing (England only)

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What is the data like?

• Survey microdata
• Large sample sizes (but smaller than the SARs)
• Continuous surveys always up-to-date
• Cross-sectional (although the LFS has a 5-quarter
  panel element, GHS goes longitudinal this year)
• Specialist topic surveys more depth than the
  Census
• Freely available to academics via ESDS

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Increased data use Jan 02-now (ESDS started Jan
03)
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How are the data used?

• To provide nationally representative results,
  with the flexibility of microdata
• Analyses looking at change over time
• Repeated cross-sections
• Pseudo-cohort studies
• To look at sub-populations
• Large sample sizes
• Many datasets can be pooled due to relative
  consistency in content and method over time
• Hierarchical data for household analyses
• To provide users with the scope to operationalise
  concepts differently and use more sophisticated
  modelling

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Change over time

• Data well suited emphasis on stability and
  comparability
• Straightforward trends e.g.
• Smoking by class (Marmot 2003)
• Smoking prevalence by month (Jarvis 2003)
• Attitudes to homosexuality (Crocket and Voas
  2003)
• Pseudo cohort analyses
• Womens access to pensions by partnership (Ginn
  2003)
• Alcohol consumption by age (Kemm 2003)
• Changing risk factors for divorce by year of
  marriage (Chan Halpin 2005)

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Representative samples of subpopulations

• Samples vary but can be large
• Labour Force Survey c.60k households
• Family Resources survey c.27k households
• British Crime Survey c. 33k individuals
• Pool to increase sample size of small
  subpopulations e.g. individual ethnic groups
• 12 years pooled of LFS to look at womens
  employment by ethnic group (Dale et. Al 2005)
• 3 years of FRS to look at womens pension chances
  by ethnic group (Ginn and Arber 2001)
• Health Survey contains subgroup boosts
• 1999 Ethnic minority boost allow analysis of
  obesity by ethnic group (Saxena et. Al. 2004)

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Using hierarchy to look within households

• Workless Households (Dickens et.al, 2000)
• Educational homogamy in Britain Ireland (Halpin
  2003)
• Impact of parenthood/partnership

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ESDS GovernmentOutreach and Support

• Help-desk
• User Groups
• Annual Research Conference
• Newsletter
• Vital stats GIS interface
• Interface between Government and Users
• Themed materials and training
• Training workshops and publicity events
• Production of teaching datasets
• Web-based materials

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Workshop and Events

• Introductory workshops (inc. those joint with
  SARs workshops)
• Joint workshops with other ESDS services
• Methods
• Research conferences
• Dataset user groups
• Other presentations
• Posters

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Data - value added

• Annual teaching dataset produced
• With documentation
• Based around annual theme
• Information about comparing data over time
• Derived variables produced where necessary
• User-generated derived variables QAd and made
  available

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Resources to support users

• Thematic Guides
• FAQs Starting Analysis Guides
• Methodological Guides
• SPSS, Stata
• Guide to weighting
• Publications database
• Biannual newsletter
• Links to other web resources

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CommonGIS Interfacefor Vital Statistics
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Help-desk

• 174 Queries in the last year
• Range of different ranges of complexity
• How do I get access to the HSE?
• What are social classes written as roman
  numerals?
• Why do my sample sizes increase if I weight?
• Should I apply weights if Im modelling?
• The sample size for matched LFS data seem wrong
• The household identifiers are missing from an
  early LFS
• Help desk involves collaboration with UKDA and
  ONS

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Interface between data depositors and users

• Organise User Groups for data producers to meet
  users
• Awareness and consultation role in developments
• General Household Survey (Longitudinal)
• Continuous Population Survey
• Data access e.g. Special Conditions
• Response to increased concern about
  confidentiality and withdrawal of some data
• Negotiation of tighter conditions to permit
  access to data which poses greater
  confidentiality concerns
• Access to information on date of birth, local
  authority district etc.