The design of Understanding Society: The UK Household Longitudinal Study calls for enhanced health content relative to its precursor study, the British Household Panel Survey (BHPS). This paper documents the design and implementation of the collection of biomeasures by trained nurses in...

When performing data linkage, survey respondents need to provide their informed consent. Since not all respondents agree to this request, the linked dataset will have fewer observations than the survey dataset alone and bias may be introduced. By focusing on the role that survey design features...

This paper presents some preliminary findings from Wave 5 of the Innovation Panel (IP5) of Understanding Society: The UK Household Longitudinal Study. Understanding Society is a major panel survey in the UK. In February 2012, the fifth wave of the Innovation Panel went into the field. IP5 used a...

To date, face-to-face interviewing has been the primary mode of data collection for Understanding Society. There may be advantages in instead collecting data online where possible. Primarily, this should bring a reduction in data collection costs. There are, however, concerns that response rates...

This paper presents some preliminary findings from the Wave 4 Innovation Panel (IP4) of Understanding Society: The UK Household Longitudinal Study. Understanding Society is a major new panel survey for the UK. In March 2011, the fourth wave of the Innovation Panel was fielded. This paper...

With decreasing survey response rates, increased costs, and tightened survey budgets, the linking of administrative records to survey data is seen as an important tool for research. The current study analyzes consent decisions in the first wave of Understanding Society: the UK Household...

This paper presents some preliminary findings from the Wave 3 Innovation Panel (IP3) of Understanding Society: The UK Household Longitudinal Study. Understanding Society is a major new panel survey for the UK. In April 2010, the third wave of the Innovation Panel was fielded. This paper...

The British Household Panel Survey (BHPS) is the first study of its kind to have asked for permission to link to a range of administrative health records. Multivariate analysis is applied to investigate whether there is consent bias. We find that consent on the BHPS is not biased with respect to...

Survey organisations often attempt to 'convert' sample members who refuse to take part in a survey. Persuasive techniques are used in an effort to get the refusers to change their mind and agree to an interview. This is done in order to improve response rate and, possibly, to reduce non-response...