Here we provide the latest information about the Scottish Health Survey.
Scottish Health Survey Video (April 2012)
A video has been made to highlight the uses of the survey and illustrate why we need to run it. Click here to view it.
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2010 Datasets Available (April 2012)
The 2010 dataset is now available on the ESDS data archive. Click here to download it. The syntax used in the 2010 report is also now available in the Analyst Help section of this website.
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Questionnaire Review for 2012-2015 (January 2012)
We are very grateful to all those who took part in the questionnaire consultation earlier in the year. The report detailing the outcome of the consultation and the changes to be made to the questionnaire for 2012-2015 is now published. Download it here.
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Topic report: Older People's Health (November 2011)
The latest topic report looking at the health of older people was published on 29 November 2011. Go to the Reports and Publications page to download the report.
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Topic report: Obesity (October 2011)
A report looking at measurement of obesity and the factors associated with obesity was published on 25 October 2011. Go to the Reports and Publications page to download the report.
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2010 Annual Report published (September 2011)
The first national results for the 2010 Scottish Health Survey have now been published (publication date 27/09/11). Three volumes have been published. A main report, a technical report and a summary. Go to the Reports and Publications page to download the reports.
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Revisions to 2009 and 2008/2009 datasets (September 2011)
A small error was discovered in the 2009 and 2008/2009 weights which has led to the revision of almost all of the tables in the 2009 report and web tables. Although almost all of the tables have been affected, the impact of the revision is very small with the majority of revisions within 1 percentage point of those originally published. In line with the SHeS revisions policy, the 2009 report has not been recreated. A set of spreadsheets has been added to the revisions section of the website which replicate each table and highlight cells which have been revised.
Revised versions of the 2009 and 2008/2009 datasets have been lodged with the data archive and these can be downloaded now.
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Contract Awarded for 2012-2015 (June 2011)
Following an open competition, the contract for running the survey for the next four years has been awarded to the Scottish Centre for Social Research, in consortium with the MRC/CSO Social and Public Health Sciences Unit, the Centre for Population Health Sciences at Edinburgh University and the Public Health Nutrition Research Group at Aberdeen University.
A number of changes are being made to the survey design for 2012-2015. These can be summarised as follows:
- The annual sample size will be reduced by a third, with a target sample of around 4,000 adults and 1,800 child interviews.
- The survey will continue to provide Health Board level results after 4 years although the minimum sample size for smaller boards has been reduced from 784 to 500 adults over the 4 year period. Health Boards will continue to have the opportunity to boost samples in their area.
- The survey methodology, sampling and weighting will be brought in-house and carried out by Scottish Government statisticians rather than the contractors. This is being done as part of the harmonisation programme for the major SG population surveys and will facilitate the production of a pooled dataset based on the three major Scottish population surveys (including the Scottish Household Survey and Scottish Crime and Justice Survey).
- The second-stage nurse visit will be removed and the majority of measurements currently collected by the nurse will be transfer to the main interview. Lung function and hip circumference will no longer be able to be measured and venous blood samples will be replaced by dry blood spots.
For further information about the changes, please contact us on scottishhealthsurvey@scotland.gsi.gov.uk
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Questionnaire Consultation 2012-2015 (April 2011)
The questionnaire consultation exercise has now ended. Thank you to all those who contributed. An update on the results on the consultation exercise will be published here soon.
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New Analyst Help Section
We have added a new section to the website called Analyst Help. This provides detailed technical help for those undertaking analysis of SHeS datasets.
This includes links to downloading datasets, survey documentation, variable lists and technical reports. Specific guidance is also given on analysis by NHS Board and Local Authority, exploring change over time, deprivation analysis and weighting the data. To help SPSS and SAS users, we also provide specific worked examples, covering how to create tables, replicating published tables (including a list of the variable names to produce published tables), producing confidence intervals and age standardisation. Data issues concerning analysis by specific health topics is also included covering methodological changes, variable and data issues.
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Analysis of SHeS data by Health Board and Local Authority - latest update
The 2008-2011 survey was designed to give representative results for every NHS Board in Scotland after 4 years. The results for all NHS Boards from the core survey will be published in mid 2012 (results aggregated for years 2008/09/10/11). Health Boards with larger samples will be able to analyse their own data before this time.
We have produced an updated summary of when results for different sub-geographies will be available (ie NHS Board and Local Authority) (updated 21/12/10) . For each NHS Board and Local Authority this paper gives an indication of whether analysis of Scottish Health Survey data prior to 2012 will be possible, including the associated measures of precision of these results.
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Knowledge, Attitudes and Motivations to Health (KAM) Report
The KAM report (data from Scottish Health Survey) was published on 14 December 2010 by NHS Health Scotland and highlights the gap between people's lifestyles and how healthy they say they are. The report presents findings from the KAM module included within the 2008 and 2009 Scottish Health Survey.
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Topic Report: The Glasgow Effect
Report published on 11 November 2010. See Reports and Publications page for details.
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Scottish Health Survey 2009
The first national results from the 2009 Scottish Health Survey were released on 28 September 2010. See Reports and Publications page for details. Results at NHS Board level will not be available for most Boards until 2012. For more information see results below national level.
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Scottish Health Survey Newsletter
'SHeS News' is our Scottish Health Survey email newsletter which provides the latest news about the survey, including any recent publications and relevant links.
To view the latest/previous newsletter(s) click on the relevant links.
You can subscribe to SHeS News by contacting us and clicking on the link found under 'Mailing List'.
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Training and Events
Currently there are no training or events running. If you have any suggestions for future events and/or training, please contact us.
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Communication and Marketing Strategy
A short on-line survey was undertaken in autumn/winter 2008/09 to establish the audience for the Scottish Health Survey outputs and their differing requirements. Results of this were taken into account while drafting the communication and marketing strategy for the Scottish Health Survey. The strategy highlights how we plan to:
- raise awareness of the Scottish Health Survey;
- ensure results are accessible to users;
- provide appropriate technical information and support; and
- encourage and support analysis of the data.
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Review of the Scottish Health Survey
A comprehensive review of the Scottish Health Survey was carried out during 2005 and 2006 and made a number of recommendations, including:
- the survey should adopt a core and modular structure
- the survey should become a continuous survey
- robust results at Scotland level should be available every year
- robust results at Health Board level should be availale by amalgamating a number of years of data together
- the sample design should be unclustered (if costs allow)
- options should be available to boost the sample either for geographical areas of for specific topics
All of the recommendations were adopted.
Interested parties were consulted on content of new 2008 questionnaire during summer/autumn 2007. Please see our questionnaire consultation page for the results of this consultation.