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Institute of Epidemiology & Health Care

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Other longitudinal and cross-sectional studies

Longitudinal studies

Centre for Longitudinal Studies for:

1958 National Child Development Study: cohort of 17,000 births in 1958 followed up at intervals. Contains a wide range of medical/health data.

1970 British Cohort Study: cohort of 17,198 births in the UK in the week 5-11 April, 1970 followed up since. Contains medical data and data on physical, educational, social and economic development.

Next Steps: cohort of 16,000 people born in born in 1989-90 who joined the study in 2004. Members were surveyed annually until 2010, and then again in 2015-16, when they were aged 25. Contains information on education, employment, economic circumstances, family life, physical and emotional health and wellbeing, social participation and attitudes.

Millennium Cohort Study: follows a cohort of 19,000 children born in the UK during a twelve month period from June 2001. Fieldwork started in September 2003 in England and Wales, and December 2003 in Scotland and Northern Ireland.

BHPS: British Household Panel Survey: cohort of 5,500 households and 10,300 individuals in Great Britain, followed up annually from 1991. Sample refreshed by births to sample members. Now expanded to become:

Understanding Society: the UK Household Longitudinal Study: a panel study of the socio-economic circumstances and attitudes of people in 40,000 households (including British Household Panel Survey sample members). The first data collection took place in 2009.

ELSA: English Longitudinal Study of Ageing: started in 2002 with a sample of 12,000 people aged 50 or over and their younger partners. Data collection every two years, sample refreshed at intervals.

MRC National Survey of Health and Development: NSHD: cohort of 5,362 births in 1946 followed up to the present day. Contains data on subjects' physical and mental health, including observational measures, diet and lifestyle, and family, employment and social circumstances.

Cross-sectional studies

Census microdata (formerly known as Samples of Anonymised Records or SARs): anonymised individual level records sampled from a single census which contain a wide range of individual and household characteristics so enable multivariate analyses for a range or purposes.

General Lifestyle Survey (formerly known as the General Household Survey): started in 1971 but was discontinued in 2012. It was based on a sample of around 10,000 private households in Great Britain (around 18,000 adults). Started in 1971; from 2009 it became part of the new Integrated Household Survey and included a longitudinal element.

Health Survey for England (HSE): annual surveys with a common core of questions and specific modules with a different focus for each year. Questions asked and sample populations vary from year to year depending on the focus.

Various ONS household and individual surveys.

More information on these, and other national surveys, is available from CLOSER, the UK Data Archive and the UK Data Service.