On 25 June, we held our latest Health Studies User Conference in collaboration with UCL and the National Centre for Social Research. The conference brought together data producers and data users to share updates on key health-related surveys and showcase research using data from these surveys.
Health-related survey updates
This year’s conference featured several important data updates. Katie Ridout from the National Centre for Social Research gave a comprehensive overview of the latest developments in the Health Survey for England (HSE), Scottish Health Survey (SHeS), Adult Psychiatric Morbidity Survey (APMS), Gambling Survey for Great Britain (GSGB), and English Longitudinal Study of Ageing (ELSA).
This was followed by a detailed look at the National Survey of Sexual Attitudes and Lifestyles (Natsal) by Rebecca Light from the National Centre for Social Research. Data from the latest wave of the survey, Natsal-4, is expected to be available through the UK Data Service from November 2026.
Tim Vizard from the Office for National Statistics (ONS) and Paul Niblett from the Department of Health and Social Care then led a session on the future of population health surveys focusing on a recent review of the Health Survey for England by the ONS. You can read the full review at the ONS website. Future updates on the Health Survey for England will be published by the NHS at this webpage.
The final updates came in the form of a lightning talk session, which featured four short presentations on longitudinal studies and data linkage. These included talks covering:
- Health data linkages in the UCL Centre for Longitudinal Studies’ national longitudinal cohort studies (Richard Silverwood, UCL)
- Recent developments in Understanding Society (Jack Kneeshaw, University of Essex)
- UK Census Longitudinal Studies (Stephen Jivraj, UCL)
- A pathway to improved maternity research in Northern Ireland (Estelle Lowry, Queen’s University Belfast)
Research using the data
The research sessions featured ten diverse pieces of research using data from health-related surveys. Topics covered include ethnic inequalities in frailty levels and trajectories in the UK, why cigarette dependence is greatest in smokers who start young, adolescent mental health and young adulthood NEET status in the UK, and many more. You can find presentation slides from many of the research sessions at our dedicated event page.
The value of surveys
In the final session, Professor Sally McManus from City St George’s, University of London, gave an inspiring keynote presentation focused on the value of surveys in understanding the mental health of the general population.
She noted that surveys remain our best source of prevalence, change, gaps, inequalities, context, risk factors, impact and more. They tell us things we simply can’t learn from any other source. And while good surveys cost a lot to administer, the insights they generate make them a bargain.
The conference was then brought to a close by Finn Dymond-Green, UK Data Service Director for Impact, who discussed the work carried out by our Impact Team to demonstrate how data makes a difference in the world. You can learn more about this work at our Data Impact blog and via case studies and impact themes produced by the team.