Update from ONS on the review of the future design of the Health Survey for England tinyurl.com/4xv45x8c. Latest developments, key findings, and next steps will be discussed at the Health Studies User Conference, 25 June, hybrid. We hope you will join for the discussion. tinyurl.com/3trts9s5.
📺WATCH - new videos added to our 20th anniversary key concepts series:
🐶Animals & Social Life
👥 Sibling relationships
👩🏽👧🏽👦🏽Family practices
♻️Consumption & everyday life
🦉What is ageing?
Thanks to everybody who helped make these, and we hope you enjoy them!
youtube.com/playlist?lis...
Linked digital trace and survey data for secondary research: Potential and constraints
✨ Join us on 26 March for the second in a series of webinars dedicated to data linkage and integration.
This free event is co-organised by the UK Data Service in collaboration with the DIGISURVOR project.
📅 26 March 2026
⏰ 11:00-12:15
📍 Online
🧷 ukdataservice.ac.uk/events/using...
On Trinity Hall admissions: my concern is how it's been done: the judgement and signals sent by focusing more on already advantaged schools when pressure hits, and framing widening participation as charity, rather than central to academic excellence.
LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/posts/debora...
My sister (who tbf is a software engineer) used what I am pretty sure was a google tool to remote onto our dad's computer and it was a game changer as it meant we could go in and change settings for him. Dad no longer with us but suspect these things are out there.
shorturl.at/gjhgz The UK is one of the most unequal advanced countries in the world. It is therefore distressing to report that Trinity Hall Cambridge is to favour admissions from elite private schools. This is a dark day for fairness. #ComprehensiveFuture #CASE #fairness #nosnobbery
“Compelling... challenges the idea that women are simply 'poor men' in pension systems... shows why pensions must be reimagined to reflect the realities of diverse lives.”
@gerontologyuk.bsky.social on 'Pension Saving in a Gendered Lifecourse' by Hayley James 👇
www.agendapub.com/page/detail/...
There should be a word for that feeling of utter relief when you manage to indeed verify that you are human
#modernlife
We couldn't agree more. @gerontologyuk.bsky.social on data preservation & infrastructure: "They are foundational to democracy, social understanding, and the pursuit of knowledge. They form the basis of sound decision-making across policy, economics, industry and society." @ukdataservice.bsky.social
📢New publication from our team: "The meaning of ‘quality’ of homecare for older people: a scoping review" bmchealthservres.biomedcentral.com/articles/10....
Padlock on a computer keyboard
⏰New on the Data Impact blog⏰
Debora Price (@gerontologyuk.bsky.social) reflects on the importance of data preservation, recent international threats to data infrastructure, and why we must protect trusted data services as essential public institutions.
blog.ukdataservice.ac.uk/why-data-pre...
@ukdataservice.bsky.social @vanessahiggins.bsky.social
NHS is stopping the Health Survey for England.
ONS user input qu'airre on this open to 25 July.
If data from population health surveys are important for your work, it's vital to feed in. Defunding this data collection may be a huge error with so many population health challenges.
Blog with links:
We welcome today's recommendations that the UK gvmt commission 2031 censuses.
The census remains a cornerstone of how we understand our society—and it’s great to see UKSA recognising its user's needs on this.
Read more in a blog from our CEO 👉 rss.org.uk/news-publica...
A really interesting thread on the very tricky issues facing ONS and the national social and economic surveys today
Really interesting thread, thanks
That's my rabbit hole journey exhausted for the evening...
A mighty tome, interesting discussion of the emergence of relative measures (Pg 59 etc seq) from the 19
60s (crediting Townsend and others) but unclear exactly when govts adopted them and how the lines were drawn - suggests Townsend himself was wary of the arbitrary line
iea.org.uk/wp-content/u...
I'm pretty sure I have a book somewhere called something thrilling like The Development of Poverty Indicators in the EU. I'll see if I can dig it out.
I found this which suggests it came from Townsend's study of poverty: peteradamsonwriting.com/essays/short...
He published a seminal book on poverty I think in 1979
I have a feeling it came from research by Peter Townsend? I may have that wrong. I am pretty sure I knew the answer to this at a point in my life.
A person working on their laptop
Topic webinars from Understanding Society - all 14.00-15.00, for new and experienced data users:
Income, wealth and housing: 12 March
Employment: 19 March
Family, households, children: 26 March
Sign up on our website - www.understandingsociety.ac.uk/help/trainin...
Our latest report found over 1 in 5 people in the UK are in poverty.
On Friday we are hosting an 'Ask Me Anything' session on Reddit - you can ask our analysts about the stats, the modelling, policy, and the picture of poverty across the UK.
🙋 Join our session: www.reddit.com/r/ukpolitics...
I completely agree, but it has become politically unsayable. I think the transformation of work towards gig and precarious work makes these arguments and discussions all the more urgent.
It tells us that if you are a political party and these are the exact things you say to the public, you will have very substantive support.
Hard agree. I think people who pay a lot of tax don't really realise how limited tax data is in reflecting populations
Am excellent thread on some of the tensions as between our current #census and potential replacement by admin #data.
@ukdataservice.bsky.social
And definitely this, re care
I don't think tax data is the answer? Really a lot of people are not captured in our tax datasets as they are not taxpayers