Accessing longitudinal data via the UK Data Archive / ESDS Jack Kneeshaw NCDS summer school course, July 2005

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Accessing longitudinal data via the UK Data
Archive / ESDSJack KneeshawNCDS summer school
course, July 2005
ESDS Longitudinal
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Economic and Social Data Service

• new national data archiving and dissemination
  service
• provides access and support for key economic and
  social data
• distributed service, bringing together centres of
  expertise in data creation, dissemination,
  preservation and use
• provides seamless and easier access to a range of
  disparate resources for UK Higher and Further
  Education sectors
• core archiving services plus four specialist data
  services

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ESDS Longitudinal

• Joint enterprise
• UK Data Archive (UKDA)
• UK Longitudinal Studies Centre (ULSC)
• based at ISER
• supports a range of longitudinal data collections
  but five core collections in particular
• 1970 British Cohort Study (BCS70)
• British Household Panel Survey (BHPS)
• Millennium Cohort Study (MCS)
• National Child Development Study (NCDS)
• English Longitudinal Study of Ageing (ELSA)

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• National Child Development Survey (NCDS)
• cohort born in a single week in 1958
• data collected at birth, plus ages 7, 11, 16, 23,
  33, 42
• invaluable resource for investigating social
  mobility and the impact on later life of
  childhood conditions
• coverage includes a wide range of social,
  economic, health and psychological issues

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• 1970 British Cohort Study (BCS70)
• cohort of all people born in a single week in
  1970
• data collected around birth, and at ages 5, 10,
  16, 26 and most recently at age 30
• design and coverage is similar to NCDS the
  latest sweeps used a common questionnaire
• provides important opportunities for inter-cohort
  comparison

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• Millennium Cohort Study (MCS)
• the latest of the birth cohort studies, focusing
  on children born in 2000 and 2001
• first sweep of data collected when children were
  aged 9 months
• second sweep collected data when the children
  reached 3 years
• the MCS will make a major contribution to
  understanding children and families in the UK

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British Household Panel Survey (BHPS)

• the BHPS is collected and deposited by the ULSC
  at Essex
• follows the members of 5500 households first
  sampled in 1991
• interviews conducted annually
• become a major resource for understanding the
  dynamics of British households
• coverage includes
• income, labour market behaviour, social and
  political values, health, education, housing and
  household organisation
• recently large new samples were introduced in
• Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland

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English Longitudinal Study of Ageing (ELSA)

• study of English population aged 50, following
  12,000 respondents through ageing process
• first study in the UK to connect the full range
  of topics necessary to understand the economic,
  social, psychological and health elements of the
  ageing process
• follow-ups every two years to see how peoples
  health, economic and social circumstances change
• study design allows researchers to track
  lifecourse from pre-retirement through to death
• sample selected from 1998, 1999 and 2001 HSE
  surveys which will allow ELSA data to be matched
  to respondents health data prior to first
  interview

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ESDS Longitudinal Demo
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Data Deposit, Processing, Retrieval and Access
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The data themselves - NCDS
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The data themselves BCS70
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Data not held at the UKDA

• some additional data, derived from further minor
  data collections, data cleaning etc., only
  available via CLS at present
• these data are added to the UKDA collection from
  time to time

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Ensuring confidentiality

• cohort members promised confidentiality
• datasets deposited with UKDA are fully anonymised
• datasets go through further process of checking
  at the UKDA
• UKDA users undertake not to identify individuals

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Documentation

• A variety of NCDS/BCS70 documentation is
  available, including
• guides to datasets
• lists of publications
• annotated questionnaires
• interactive data dictionaries
• Data Notes series
• other survey-related documentation, inc. working
  papers etc.
• Available both from CLS and UKDA web sites.

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Retrieval and Access

• web access, via UKDA site, to data and metadata
• documentation (codebooks, questionnaires) freely
  available to any UKDA user (registered or
  unregistered)
• data can be browsed and frequencies run by any
  user (registered or unregistered) using Nesstar
• full datasets are freely available for download
  for the majority of our registered users
• data supplied in a variety of formats
• SPSS
• STATA
• tab-delimited text

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Online access for unregistered users

• UKDA web pages - easy to navigate format
• Search catalogue facility
• subject browsing - e.g. major series
• HASSET thesaurus
• access to online doc - pdf user guides and
  questionnaires
• Nesstar
• browse data and metadata for a selection of data,
  inc. NCDS and BCS70
• run frequencies

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Unregistered users demo
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Online access for registered users

• Registered users can
• download full datasets
• order data via online order system
• browse/analyse/download data in Nesstar
• To register
• obtain an Athens ID
• sign and return data access agreement (legal
  undertaking)
• (to access data) register a usage (formerly a
  project)

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Registered users demo, inc. Nesstar
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• ESDS Longitudinal
• 44 (0)1206 872143
• www.esds.ac.uk/longitudinal
• www.data-archive.ac.uk
• nesstar.esds.ac.uk/webview/index.jsp
• help_at_esds.ac.uk