Getting started with the Welsh Health Survey
1. Which dataset do I want?
The current WHS series was conducted
for the first time in 2003-2004 and replaces two previous study series: the
previous WHS, conducted in 1995 and 1998, and the Health in Wales Survey which
was conducted five times in 1985, 1988, 1990, 1993 and 1996. Users should note
that results from the new WHS survey are not comparable with those from the
previous surveys, because of differences in the questionnaires and survey methodology.
The Welsh Health Survey (WHS) datasets
are available from ESDS (excluding the 1995 survey). The Health in Wales Survey
datasets are not available from ESDS.
2. Consulting the documentation
It will not be possible to analyse
the WHS 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:
o information about how the survey
was conducted
o information about which variables are available
o information about how the data is coded
o the survey questionnaires
The survey questionnaire 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 a data exploration
and analysis tool. It contains the 1998 WHS dataset, as well as some documentation
about the 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. You can access Nesstar from the WHS datasets page.
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 (usually in SPSS, STATA or tab-delimited
formats) via the online catalogue record and via the download/order section
of the Major Studies web pages.
5. Downloading the data
Once registered 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 entire file, or a subset of your choice, into a wider range
of formats via Nesstar WebView.
6. Analysing the data using an appropriate
analysis package
Because the 1998 WHS dataset contains
microdata you will need to analyse it 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 WHS. 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.
A list of Frequently Asked Questions for the Welsh Health Survey is also available.
8. Publishing
We need to let other researchers and
data depositors know what publications are available using the WHS. 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.
