From April 2020 participants from our main Understanding Society sample have been asked to complete a short web-survey. This survey covers the changing impact of the pandemic on the welfare of UK individuals, families and wider communities. Participants complete a regular survey, which includes core content designed to track changes, alongside variable content adapted as the coronavirus situation develops. Researchers will be able to link the data from this web survey to answers respondents have given in previous (and future) waves of the annual Understanding Society survey.

Understanding Society (the 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.

The Understanding Society COVID-19 Study 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 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.

This dataset contains Census 2011 Lower Layer Super Output Areas (LSOA) geographic variables for the Understanding Society COVID-19 study.

A file is provided for each wave of the Understanding Society COVID-19 study to date, containing the Census 2011 Lower Layer Super Output Areas (LSOA) geographic variable and a personal identification serial number (pidp) for file matching to the main Understanding Society COVID-19 study (https://beta.ukdataservice.ac.uk/datacatalogue/studies/study?id=8644">SN 8644). There are two types of waves: web waves have a filename postfix of _w and telephone waves have a filename postfix of _t.

In addition, this study also contains Census 2011 LSOA geographic variables that can be matched to a dataset released with the main Understanding Society COVID-19 study containing data taken from waves 10 and 11 of the main Understanding Society survey, specifically for the respondents in the COVID-19 study. This file is named jk_lsoa11_cv and as well as the LSOA11 geographic variable, it also contains a personal identification serial number (pidp) and a household identification serial number for both wave 10 (j_hidp) and wave 11 (k_hidp). Further details can be found in the Understanding Society COVID-19 User Guide.

Additional information can be found on the https://www.understandingsociety.ac.uk/topic/covid-19">Understanding Society COVID-19 website, including https://www.understandingsociety.ac.uk/documentation/covid-19">Data documentation. A list of https://www.understandingsociety.ac.uk/research/publications/subject/Covid%2019">Understanding Society COVID-19 Research Outputs (regularly updated) is also available.

New edition information
For the seventh edition (December 2021), the new data file for wave 9 has been deposited.

At the end of 2020 the GLA commissioned the University of Essex to analyse the impact on Londoners of the Covid-19 crisis, of the emergency policies put in place since March 2020 and of some counterfactual policy options, including the continuation of the £20 weekly uplift in Universal Credit and Working Tax Credit. The researchers used UKMOD, the UK tax-benefit microsimulation model, to conduct their analysis.

The Coronavirus (COVID-19) Press Briefings Corpus is a work in progress to collect and present in a machine readable text dataset of the daily briefings from around the world by government authorities. During the peak of the pandemic, most countries around the world informed their citizens of the status of the pandemic (usually involving an update on the number of infection cases, number of deaths) and other policy-oriented decisions about dealing with the health crisis, such as advice about what to do to reduce the spread of the epidemic.

Usually daily briefings did not occur on a Sunday.

At the moment the dataset includes:

UK/England: Daily Press Briefings by UK Government between 12 March 2020 - 01 June 2020 (70 briefings in total)

Scotland: Daily Press Briefings by Scottish Government between 3 March 2020 - 01 June 2020 (76 briefings in total)

Wales: Daily Press Briefings by Welsh Government between 23 March 2020 - 01 June 2020 (56 briefings in total)

Northern Ireland: Daily Press Briefings by N. Ireland Assembly between 23 March 2020 - 01 June 2020 (56 briefings in total)

World Health Organisation: Press Briefings occuring usually every 2 days between 22 January 2020 - 01 June 2020 (63 briefings in total)

More countries will be added in due course, and we will be keeping this updated to cover the latest daily briefings available.

The corpus is compiled to allow for further automated political discourse analysis (classification).

In 2018-19 the GLA first undertook a Survey of Londoners. At the time it provided vital evidence on Londoners that had never been collected before in such detail. In 2021-22, the GLA conducted another Survey of Londoners, following the same methodology as the Survey of Londoners 2018-19, an online and paper self-completion survey of adults aged 16 and over in London. The survey, which received responses from 8,630 Londoners, aimed to assess the impact of COVID-19 and associated restrictions on key social outcomes for Londoners, not available from other data sources. It is important to understand the context in which the Survey of Londoners 2021-22 took place. Survey fieldwork began in November 2021; so, up to that point, it had been four months since most legal limits on social contact had been removed. However, after fieldwork had started, some restrictions due to the emergence of the Omicron variant were introduced. This may or may not have had some effect on the data. Given these changing circumstances, caution should be applied when interpreting the results. The Survey of Londoners 2021-22 also took place just before the full effects of the cost-of-living crisis began to set in. It is highly likely that the situations of Londoners have changed while analysis was taking place. On this page there is a headline findings report, published on 30 September 2022, which provides descriptive results for the key headline measures and supporting demographic data collected by the survey. Accompanying this report are more detailed tables documenting the key results of the survey by a range of demographic and other characteristics, a short summary document presenting key findings from the survey, and a technical report for those interested in the survey’s methodology. Further to these, a series of pen portraits, providing snapshots of particular groups of Londoners, as captured at the time of the Survey of Londoners 2021-22, were first added on 31 October 2022. Also on this page, there is an initial findings report, that was published on 2 September 2022. This was published to provide timely evidence from the survey to support the case for further targeted support to help low-income Londoners with the cost-of-living crisis. We have launched an online explorer where users can interrogate the data collected from the two surveys, conducted in 2018-19 and 2021-22. This is the first iteration, so we welcome any feedback on it - GO TO THE EXPLORER The record-level Survey of Londoners dataset can be accessed via the UK Data Service, University of Essex. The dataset is available for not-for-profit educational and research purposes only. Finally, as the North East London (NEL) NHS funded a 'boost' in their sub-region to enable a more detailed analysis to be conducted within, they produced an analytical report in September 2022. This is also available for download from this page.

The Education Endowment Foundation (EEF) has been leading the management of the Tuition Partners (TP) pillar of the National Tutoring Programme (NTP) in 2020/2021, funded as part of the government coronavirus catch-up package. The TP programme allows schools to access subsidised tuition from a list of 33 tuition partners, quality approved by the EEF, to support pupils who have missed out the most as a result of school closures due to the COVID-19 pandemic. The focus is on supporting disadvantaged pupils, in particular those eligible for Pupil Premium, but with flexibility for schools to select those pupils who they feel were most in need of the support. The EEF commissioned the National Foundation for Educational Research (NFER) to run a reach and engagement nimble randomised controlled trial (RCT) with EM Tuition, an approved NTP Tuition Partner. The RCT explored the impact of two distinctive types of recruitment emails on school sign-up to the TP programme provided by EM Tuition: one email included a testimonial from a headteacher on the benefits of tutoring, the other included a summary of the research evidence of the benefits of tutoring. EM Tuition sent recruitment emails during February and March 2021 to 1,949 primary, secondary, and special schools in areas of England where they offer tutoring provision, including Hertfordshire, Essex, North London, the East of England, and Suffolk. Schools were randomly allocated to receive one of the two types of email messages. A team from NFER analysed the impact of the different recruitment emails on the proportion of schools signing a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) or providing an Expression of Interest (EoI) for their pupils to receive tutoring from EM Tuition as part of the TP programme.

The Education Endowment Foundation (EEF) has been leading the management of the Tuition Partners (TP) pillar of the National Tutoring Programme (NTP) in 2020/2021, funded as part of the government coronavirus catch-up package. The TP programme allows schools to access subsidised tuition from a list of 33 tuition partners, quality approved by the EEF, to support pupils who have missed out the most as a result of school closures due to the COVID 19 pandemic. The focus is on supporting disadvantaged pupils, in particular those eligible for Pupil Premium, but with flexibility for schools to select those pupils who they feel were most in need of the support. The EEF commissioned the National Foundation for Educational Research (NFER) to run a reach and engagement nimble randomised controlled trial (RCT) with EM Tuition, an approved NTP Tuition Partner. The RCT explored the impact of two distinctive types of recruitment emails on school sign-up to the TP programme provided by EM Tuition: one email included a testimonial from a headteacher on the benefits of tutoring, the other included a summary of the research evidence of the benefits of tutoring. EM Tuition sent recruitment emails during February and March 2021 to 1,949 primary, secondary, and special schools in areas of England where they offer tutoring provision, including Hertfordshire, Essex, North London, the East of England, and Suffolk. Schools were randomly allocated to receive one of the two types of email messages. A team from NFER analysed the impact of the different recruitment emails on the proportion of schools signing a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) or providing an Expression of Interest (EoI) for their pupils to receive tutoring from EM Tuition as part of the TP programme.

The SHMI is the ratio between the actual number of patients who die following hospitalisation at the trust and the number that would be expected to die on the basis of average England figures, given the characteristics of the patients treated there. It includes deaths which occurred in hospital and deaths which occurred outside of hospital within 30 days (inclusive) of discharge. Deaths related to COVID-19 are excluded from the SHMI. The SHMI gives an indication for each non-specialist acute NHS trust in England whether the observed number of deaths within 30 days of discharge from hospital was 'higher than expected' (SHMI banding=1), 'as expected' (SHMI banding=2) or 'lower than expected' (SHMI banding=3) when compared to the national baseline. Trusts may be located at multiple sites and may be responsible for 1 or more hospitals. A breakdown of the data by site of treatment is also provided. The SHMI is composed of 142 different diagnosis groups and these are aggregated to calculate the overall SHMI value for each trust. The number of finished provider spells, observed deaths and expected deaths at diagnosis group level for each trust is available in the SHMI diagnosis group breakdown files. For a subset of diagnosis groups, an indication of whether the observed number of deaths within 30 days of discharge from hospital was 'higher than expected', 'as expected' or 'lower than expected' when compared to the national baseline is also provided. Details of the 142 diagnosis groups can be found in Appendix A of the SHMI specification. Notes: 1. As of the July 2020 publication, COVID-19 activity has been excluded from the SHMI. The SHMI is not designed for this type of pandemic activity and the statistical modelling used to calculate the SHMI may not be as robust if such activity were included. Activity that is being coded as COVID-19, and therefore excluded, is monitored in the contextual indicator 'Percentage of provider spells with COVID-19 coding' which is part of this publication. 2. Please note that there has been a fall in the number of spells for most trusts due to COVID-19 impacting on activity from March 2020 onwards and this appears to be an accurate reflection of hospital activity rather than a case of missing data. Further information is available in the contextual indicator ‘Provider spells compared to the pre-pandemic period’ which is part of this publication. 3. A large proportion of records for Mid and South Essex NHS Foundation Trust (trust code RAJ) have missing or incorrect information for the main condition the patient was in hospital for (their primary diagnosis) and this will have affected the calculation of the expected number of deaths. Values for this trust should therefore be interpreted with caution. 4. Day cases and regular day attenders are excluded from the SHMI. However, some day cases for University College London Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust (trust code RRV) have been incorrectly classified as ordinary admissions meaning that they have been included in the SHMI. Maidstone and Tunbridge Wells NHS Trust (trust code RWF) has submitted a number of records with a patient classification of ‘day case’ or ‘regular day attender’ and an intended management value of ‘patient to stay in hospital for at least one night’. This mismatch has resulted in the patient classification being updated to ‘ordinary admission’ by the Hospital Episode Statistics (HES) data cleaning rules. This may have resulted in the number of ordinary admissions being overstated. The trust has been contacted to clarify what the correct patient classification is for these records. Values for these trusts should therefore be interpreted with caution. 5. There is a shortfall in the number of records for North Cumbria Integrated Care NHS Foundation Trust (trust code RNN) meaning that values for this trust are based on incomplete data and should therefore be interpreted with caution. 6. An issue with HES reference data has resulted in some records for Guy’s and St Thomas’ NHS Foundation Trust (trust code RJ1) being flagged as invalid. This has led to a shortfall in spells, meaning that values for this trust are based on incomplete data and should therefore be interpreted with caution. 7. Further information on data quality can be found in the SHMI background quality report, which can be downloaded from the 'Resources' section of the publication page.

Understanding Society (the 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.

The Understanding Society: Calendar Year Dataset, 2020, is designed to enable cross-sectional analysis of individuals and households relating specifically to their annual interviews conducted in the year 2020, and, therefore, combine data collected in three waves (Waves 10, 11 and 12). It has been produced from the same data collected in the main Understanding Society study and released in the longitudinal datasets SN 6614 (End User Licence) and SN 6931 (Special Licence). Such cross-sectional analysis can, however, only involve variables that are collected in every wave in order to have data for the full sample panel. The 2020 dataset is the first of a series of planned Calendar Year Datasets to facilitate cross-sectional analysis of specific years. Full details of the Calendar Year Dataset sample structure (including why some individual interviews from 2021 are included), data structure and additional supporting information can be found in the document '8987_calendar_year_dataset_2020_user_guide'.

As multi-topic studies, the purpose of Understanding Society is to understand short- and long-term effects of social and economic change in the UK at the household and individual levels. The study has a strong emphasis on domains of family and social ties, employment, education, financial resources, and health. Understanding Society is an annual survey of each adult member of a nationally representative sample. The same individuals are re-interviewed in each wave approximately 12 months apart. When individuals move they are followed within the UK and anyone joining their households are also interviewed as long as they are living with them. The fieldwork period for a single wave is 24 months. Data collection uses computer-assisted personal interviewing (CAPI) and web interviews (from wave 7), and includes a telephone mop up. From March 2020 (the end of wave 10 and 2nd year of wave 11), due to the coronavirus pandemic, face-to-face interviews were suspended and the survey has been conducted by web and telephone only, but otherwise has continued as before. One person completes the household questionnaire. Each person aged 16 or older participates in the individual adult interview and self-completed questionnaire. Youths aged 10 to 15 are asked to respond to a paper self-completion questionnaire. In 2020 an additional frequent web survey was separately issued to sample members to capture data on the rapid changes in people’s lives due to the COVID-19 pandemic (see SN 8644). The COVID-19 Survey data are not included in this dataset.

Further information may be found on the "https://www.understandingsociety.ac.uk/documentation/mainstage"> Understanding Society main stage webpage and links to publications based on the study can be found on the Understanding Society Latest Research webpage.

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.

The Understanding Society: Calendar Year Dataset, 2021, is designed to enable cross-sectional analysis of individuals and households relating specifically to their annual interviews conducted in the year 2021, and, therefore, combine data collected in three waves (Waves 11, 12 and 13). It has been produced from the same data collected in the main Understanding Society study and released in the longitudinal datasets SN 6614 (End User Licence) and SN 6931 (Special Licence). Such cross-sectional analysis can, however, only involve variables that are collected in every wave in order to have data for the full sample panel. The 2021 dataset is the second of a series of planned Calendar Year Datasets to facilitate cross-sectional analysis of specific years. Full details of the Calendar Year Dataset sample structure (including why some individual interviews from 2022 are included), data structure and additional supporting information can be found in the document '9193_calendar_year_dataset_2021_user_guide'.

As multi-topic studies, the purpose of Understanding Society is to understand the short- and long-term effects of social and economic change in the UK at the household and individual levels. The study has a strong emphasis on domains of family and social ties, employment, education, financial resources, and health. Understanding Society is an annual survey of each adult member of a nationally representative sample. The same individuals are re-interviewed in each wave approximately 12 months apart. When individuals move, they are followed within the UK, and anyone joining their households is also interviewed as long as they are living with them. The fieldwork period for a single wave is 24 months. Data collection uses computer-assisted personal interviewing (CAPI) and web interviews (from wave 7) and includes a telephone mop-up. From March 2020 (the end of wave 10 and 2nd year of wave 11), due to the coronavirus pandemic, face-to-face interviews were suspended, and the survey has been conducted by web and telephone only but otherwise has continued as before. One person completes the household questionnaire. Each person aged 16 or older participates in the individual adult interview and self-completed questionnaire. Youths aged 10 to 15 are asked to respond to a paper self-completion questionnaire. In 2020, an additional frequent web survey was separately issued to sample members to capture data on the rapid changes in people’s lives due to the COVID-19 pandemic (see SN 8644). The COVID-19 Survey data are not included in this dataset.

Further information may be found on the Understanding Society main stage webpage and links to publications based on the study can be found on the Understanding Society Latest Research webpage.

Co-funders

In addition to the Economic and Social Research Council, co-funders for the study included the Department of Work and Pensions, the Department for Education, the Department for Transport, the Department of Culture, Media and Sport, the Department for Community and Local Government, the Department of Health, the Scottish Government, the Welsh Assembly Government, the Northern Ireland Executive, the Department of Environment and Rural Affairs, and the Food Standards Agency.

End User Licence and Special Licence versions:

There are two versions of the Calendar Year 2021 data. One is available under the standard End User Licence (EUL) agreement, and the other is a Special Licence (SL) version. The SL version contains month and year of birth variables instead of just age, more detailed country and occupation coding for a number of variables and various income variables have not been top-coded (see the document '9194_eul_vs_sl_variable_differences' for more details). Users are advised to first obtain the standard EUL version of the data to see if they are sufficient for their research requirements. The SL data have more restrictive access conditions; prospective users of the SL version will need to complete an extra application form and demonstrate to the data owners exactly why they need access to the additional variables in order to get permission to use that version. The main longitudinal versions of the Understanding Society study may be found under SNs 6614 (EUL) and 6931 (SL).

Low- and Medium-level geographical identifiers produced for the mainstage longitudinal dataset can be used with this Calendar Year 2021 dataset, subject to SL access conditions. See the User Guide for further details.

Suitable data analysis software

These data are provided by the depositor in Stata format. Users are strongly advised to analyse them in Stata. Transfer to other formats may result in unforeseen issues. Stata SE or MP software is needed to analyse the larger files, which contain about 1,900 variables.