Looking for data on health?

Key UK data on health

Whilst there is a wealth of data on health and health-related behaviour, a number of studies are regarded as 'key' in the UK – either through their subject/geographical coverage, their use of standard measures, their longevity, their usage among the research community or because they are used to create 'official' figures.

The majority of the data described are known as 'raw', 'primary' or 'source' data in the sense that they represent information that has been collected 'first-hand': they are original data sources which may then be used for 'secondary' analysis by researchers not involved in the data collection process. The majority of these data are anonymised because they describe the attitudes, behaviour, circumstances and personal details of the individuals being studied. These types of data are heavily used by the academic and government research communities.

Other research communities are less interested in these primary, and predominantly individual-level, data and are more likely to be consumers of information that has been published at the aggregate-level (e.g. tables of data where results are aggregated to health authority level, or region or country). Whilst the ESDS holds some aggregate-level data of interest to health researchers – the Vital Statistics data, for example, and the cross-national Eurostat, United Nations and World Bank databases – the ESDS is only one of many online resources that provide access to published data based on the health theme.