Administrative health records – deaths, cancer registrations and coded hospital data – provide users with ‘hard’ outcomes, identifying serious illness or death, treatments and medical follow up. Linking these data with our Study data allows the investigation of the social, economic, environmental and behavioural precursors to illness. It also allows researchers to explore wider subsequent consequences of having an illness on other dimensions of health and aspects of family, work and social life.
Administrative health records are collected on a national basis in the UK. Health linkages for Scotland and Wales are underway. An application to NHS Digital for access to English health records is being prepared.
Linked health data available for research
UK Longitudinal Linkage Collaboration
Understanding Society is part of the UK Longitudinal Linkage Collaboration (UK LLC), a research infrastructure designed to inform the UK’s research response to the Covid-19 pandemic. Led by the University of Bristol, it performs centralised data linkages across a range of longitudinal population studies to primary care, secondary care and Covid-relevant electronic NHS health records and keeps these up to date with regular updates. Anonymised linked data (the NHS records plus survey data) are stored within a Trusted Research Environment (TRE) hosted on UKSeRP (University of Swansea), from where they are made available for secure onward sharing (remote access) for approved researchers.
Where our participants have consented (~8,000), Understanding Society has contributed its Covid-19 study data to the resource. Users may apply to analyse these data linked not just to health records on Covid-19 infections, testing and vaccinations but also to wider patient information, including hospital episode statistics.
Apply to use the data via the UK LLC.