Getting started with the Health Survey for England
1. Which dataset do I want?
There are a number of Health Survey for England (HSE) datasets available. Each dataset represents annual data apart from the 1991-1992 dataset which combines data from 1991 and 1992 into one dataset. In each year the HSE has a specialist module as well as a set of core questions that are included every year. The specialist modules may be based on a topic such as disability or a population group such as the elderly. The ESDS website provides a list of the specialist modules in each year of the HSE.
2. Consulting the documentation
It will not be possible to analyse the HSE without reference to the documentation. Documentation is available for viewing before downloading/ordering the data, however you will also obtain the documentation if you download the data as a zipped file. The documentation contains:
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information about how the survey was carried out
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information about which variables are available
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information about how the data is coded
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the survey questionnaires
The survey questionnaires can also be obtained on the Survey Question Bank web site, which provides readily searchable versions of questionnaires for all major surveys used by secondary analysts.
3. Explore the data online
A good way of starting to explore the data is to look at the data in Nesstar WebView. Nesstar WebView is available for some of the more recent HSE data. Nesstar will allow you to look at univariate frequencies and variable descriptions without needing to have registered for the data. This is an excellent way of finding out whether the data are likely to be suitable for your purposes. Once in Nesstar, click on the Help tab in the top right hand corner of the screen to view a user guide. Once you have registered with ESDS you will be able to use Nesstar to its full potential, undertaking more complex analyses and downloading subsets of data in a wide variety of formats.
4. Registering for the data
Once you have decided which data to use for your project you will need to register with ESDS to obtain the data. Information about obtaining data can be found on the ESDS web site.
Registered users can download/order a large and increasing number of datasets direct (usually in SPSS, STATA or tab-delimited formats) via its online catalogue record and via the download/order section of the Major Studies web pages.
5. Downloading the data
Once registered you can download data from the website. You may either:
o download the data directly as a zipped ASCII, STATA or SPSS file. This download will also include necessary documentation
o download the file, or a subset of your choice, into a wider range of formats via Nesstar Light
6. Analysing the data using an appropriate analysis package
Because the HSE datasets are microdata you will need to analyse them using an appropriate package. You can undertake straightforward analysis, including linear regression, on the whole dataset or a subset, using Nesstar. However, it is not possible to produce derived variables or do more advanced analyses using Nesstar, to do this you will need to use a package like SPSS, STATA or SAS.
If you are unfamiliar with these packages you can find a STATA guide on the ESDS Government pages which uses examples from the Labour Force Survey. A guide to SPSS is also available, based on the HSE 2002 teaching dataset. Several organisations offer introductory SPSS and STATA courses. CCSR at the University of Manchester offers one-day courses although there is a charge. Details of these courses can be obtained through the CCSR Short Course Pages.
7. Communicating with other users and obtaining support
The ESDS-govsurveys JISCmail list is an email list you can join to hear about events and other news relating to the large-scale government list, including the HSE. To join the list click on the above link to the ESDS-govsurveys list web page or email listserv@jiscmail.ac.uk with the following message:
subscribe esds-govsurveys firstname secondname
If you hit a problem with the data while doing your work feel free to contact us. Queries relating to the large-scale government datasets should be sent to govsurveys@esds.ac.uk. Alternatively you can telephone +44 (0) 161 275 1980.
Since 2005 ESDS Government have run an annual meeting of the Health Surveys User Group (HSUG). This meeting provides a valuable forum for health researchers to meet and discuss new developments and exchange information about the Health Survey for England and other UK health surveys. The ESDS events page provides information on forthcoming events.
A list of Frequently Asked Questions is available for the Health Survey for England.
8. Publishing
We need to let other researchers and data depositors know what publications are available using the HSE. If you publish using the data, please contact us at govsurveys@esds.ac.uk and give us details of your publication. If you would be happy for us to publish something on our web site, for example the research story on smoking, please let us know.
Data collectors and distributors should be acknowledged in publications.
