Health Studies User Conference 2026

Are you interested in research using health-related data? Want to know what the future holds for population health surveys? Or are you curious how large-scale surveys are used in research, policy-making and monitoring?

Join us for the Health Studies User Conference 2026!

Organised by the UK Data Service in collaboration with UCL and the National Centre for Social Research, this free one-day conference brings data producers and data users together to share updates on the development of key health-related surveys such as the Health Survey for England, English Longitudinal Study of Ageing, National Study of Sexual Attitudes and Lifestyles, Adult Psychiatric Morbidity Survey, and national longitudinal and cohort studies. It will also showcase research that is being carried out using the data.

View the programme under 'Event resources' below.

We are delighted to announce that our keynote speaker will be Professor Sally McManus, City St George’s, University of London, who will present on Surveying the mental health of the general population: mapping three decades of inequality and change.

The conference will feature a session on the future of population health surveys, led by the UK Data Service. The session will give an overview of the 2025 national review of population health surveys, the role played by the research community in shaping this work and a discussion of the recent report on the ONS review of the future design options for the Health Survey for England (HSE). A key aim of the session is to hear from attendees. There will be an opportunity for the audience to share views and perspectives, which will be fed back to the Department of Health and Social Care. Come along and have your say on this important topic.

There will also be a dedicated session of lightning talks to provide updates from key longitudinal studies, with a focus on data linkage.

In the afternoon, we will showcase papers from researchers working with health survey data from the UK Data Service on a wide range of topics including mental health, ethnicity, inequalities, smoking and more.

Join us to connect with fellow researchers and data producers and hear about the wealth of valuable UK health study data that are available.

Follow LinkedIn for updates and join the conversation on Bluesky: #UKDSHealth26

Note: Photographs and/or video may be taken at this event. These will be used for advertising, communications, social media, training materials and other publicity or training-related purposes. Photos and videos are collected on a 'public task' basis. Attendees should contact us at booking@ukdataservice.ac.uk if they prefer their images not to be used.

Recordings of UK Data Service events are made available on our YouTube channel and, together with the slides, on our past events pages soon after the event has taken place.