Dataset population: Persons, Households

Census 2021 rounded population and household estimates for local authorities and regions in England and Wales, by sex and five-year age group.

Understanding Society, (UK Household Longitudinal Study), which began in 2009, is conducted by the Institute for Social and Economic Research (ISER) at the University of Essex and the survey research organisations Verian Group (formerly Kantar Public) and NatCen. It builds on and incorporates, the British Household Panel Survey (BHPS), which began in 1991.

Understanding Society (UK Household Longitudinal Study), which began in 2009, is conducted by the Institute for Social and Economic Research (ISER) at the University of Essex and the survey research organisations Kantar Public and NatCen. It builds on and incorporates, the British Household Panel Survey (BHPS), which began in 1991.

The Understanding Society COVID-19 Study, 2020-2021 is a regular survey of households in the UK. The aim of the study is to enable research on the socio-economic and health consequences of the COVID-19 pandemic, in the short and long term. The surveys started in April 2020 and took place monthly until July 2020. From September 2020 they took place every other month until March 2021 and the final wave was fielded in September 2021. They complement the annual interviews of the Understanding Society study. The data can be linked to data on the same individuals from previous waves of the annual interviews (SN 6614) using the personal identifier pidp. However, the most recent pre-pandemic (2019) annual interviews for all respondents who have taken part in the COVID-19 Study are included as part of this data release. Please refer to the User Guide for further information on linking in this way and for geographical information options.

Latest edition information

For the eleventh edition (December 2021), revised April, May, June, July, September, November 2020, January 2021 and March 2021 data files for the adult survey have been deposited. These files have been amended to address issues identified during ongoing quality assurance activities. All documentation has been updated to explain the revisions, and users are advised to consult the documentation for details. In addition new data from the September 2021 web survey have been deposited.

In September 2021, Google ranked first among the most used websites and apps in the United Kingdom (UK). The website accumulated 50 million users in the measured month. Facebook and Messenger were the second, with a combined number of 47 million users. YouTube followed, reaching 46 million users.

The tables are in Excel format and provide data to accompany each topic. The Methods tables provide more detailed analysis of survey response than the summary tables in the Methods report. They also include details of the quality assessments of the blood, saliva and urine samples to accompany Section 9 of the Methods report. Adults are defined as people aged 16 and over.

During an April 2021 survey in the UK, 44 percent of respondents, the majority, stated that they were casual sports fans. Meanwhile, 35 percent of respondents stated that they were not a fan of sports.

A 2021 survey among internet users in the United Kingdom (UK) found that 90 percent of the respondents started using the internet five or more years ago, while 75 percent first went online 10 or more years ago. The survey found that only one percent started going online in the past year.

According to a survey conducted in the United Kingdom in 2021, 69 percent of children said that being online made them feel closer to friends and peers, and 53 percent said it was good for their mental health. Overall, 17 percent of respondents said being online was good for their physical health. In addition, one in ten children said that being online made them feel isolated or alone.

A survey carried out in the United Kingdom in September 2021 showed that the most trusted source of news about the COVID-19 pandemic was the NHS, with 91 percent of those aged 16 years or older saying that they trusted information directly from the National Health Service. By contrast, just 21 percent said the same about Facebook.

For further information about the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic, please visit our dedicated Facts and Figures page.

• 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;
• since 1995, 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:
Users should note that from 2015 survey onwards, only the individual data file is available under standard End User Licence (EUL). The household data file is now only included in the Special Licence (SL) version, released from 2015 onwards. In addition, the SL 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 SL HSE is subject to more restrictive access conditions than the EUL version (see Access information). Users are advised to obtain the EUL version to see if it meets their needs before considering an application for the SL version.

COVID-19 and the HSE:
Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the HSE 2020 survey was stopped in March 2020 and never re-started. There was no publication that year. The survey resumed in 2021, albeit with an amended methodology. The full HSE resumed in 2022, with an extended fieldwork period. Due to this, the decision was taken not to progress with the 2023 survey, to maximise the 2022 survey response and enable more robust reporting of data. See the NHS Digital Health Survey for England - Health, social care and lifestyles webpage for more details.

The 2021 HSE included additional topics on physical activity, wellbeing (including loneliness), and gambling. The survey also provided updates on repeated core topics, including general health, long-standing illness, smoking and drinking.

According to a survey carried out in the United Kingdom (UK) in 2021, a large proportion of women of all ages were not sure what femtech was. While, around five percent of women aged between 45 and 54 years of age reported to use femtech, around half in this age group said they didn't know what femtech was.

In January 2021, adults in the United Kingdom were surveyed on the most popular garden trends. The majority of respondents, 28 percent, stated that they had vegetable patches in their gardens. Meanwhile, 15 percent of respondents stated that they had garden gnomes in their garden.

The most common type of accessing TV programs in the United Kingdom was streaming, according to 44 percent of people interviewed in a 2021 survey. Further 18 percent of respondents stated to have downloaded television content in the past three months.

Annual data on deaths registered by age, sex and selected underlying cause of death. Tables also provide both mortality rates and numbers of deaths over time.

The British Social Attitudes survey (BSA) is the leading survey in Britain for assessing trends and changes in public opinions on social and political measures. Over the past four decades, the survey has become the main source of statistics on key national issues, which makes the survey valuable for policy making, researchers, charity and media.

The British Social Attitudes Open Teaching Dataset: Health Care and Equalities, 2021, is a subsample from the original British Social Attitudes Survey 2021 (available from the UK Data Archive under SN 9072). This open-access teaching dataset has been adapted for teaching and learning with a reduced number of variables, covering attitudes towards health care and equality.

Further information is available in the study documentation, which includes a dataset user guide.

A lookup between 2021 Output Areas (OA) and countries as at 31 December 2021 in England and Wales. (File Size 6.4 MB).Field Names – OA21CD, CTRY22CD, CTRY22NM, CTRY22NMWField Types – Text, Text, Text, TextField Lengths – 9, 9, 7, 7

This release provides insights into self-reported health in England and Wales in 2021, broken down by age and sex. Key findings are presented at country, regional and local authority level. Additional analyses compare general health to the 2011 Census and examines the relationship between deprivation and health at a national decile (England) or quintile (Wales) level can be found here.

In 2021 and 2011, people were asked “How is your health in general?”. The response options were:

• Very good
• Good
• Fair
• Bad
• Very bad

Age specific percentage

Age-specific percentages are estimates of disability prevalence in each age group, and are used to allow comparisons between specified age groups. Further information is in the glossary.

Age-standardised percentage

Age-standardised percentages are estimates of disability prevalence in the population, across all age groups. They allow for comparison between populations over time and across geographies, as they account for differences in the population size and age structure. Further information is in the glossary.

Details on usage of Age-standardised percentage can be found here

Count

The count is the number of usual residents by general health status from very good to very bad, sex, age group and geographic breakdown. To ensure that individuals cannot be identified in the data, counts and populations have been rounded to the nearest 5, and counts under 10 have not been included..

General health

A person's assessment of the general state of their health from very good to very bad. This assessment is not based on a person's health over any specified period of time.

Index of Multiple Deprivation and Welsh Index of Multiple Deprivation

National deciles and quintiles of area deprivation are created through ranking small geographical populations known as Lower layer Super Output Areas (LSOAs), based on their deprivation score from most to least deprived. They are then grouped into 10 (deciles) or 5 (quintiles) divisions based on the subsequent ranking. We have used the 2019 IMD and WIMD because this is the most up-to-date version at the time of publishing.

Population

The population is the number of usual residents of each sex, age group and geographic breakdown. To ensure that individuals cannot be identified in the data, counts and populations have been rounded to the nearest 5, and counts under 10 have not been included.

Usual resident

For Census 2021, a usual resident of the UK is anyone who, on census day, was in the UK and had stayed or intended to stay in the UK for a period of 12 months or more or had a permanent UK address and was outside the UK and intended to be outside the UK for less than 12 months.

The tables are in Excel format and provide data to accompany each topic.