Understanding Society User Support

Many thanks for your enquiry. The Understanding Society team is looking into it and we will get back to you as soon as we can. We aim to respond to simple queries within 48 hours and more complex issues within 7 working days.

Best wishes,
Understanding Society User Support Team

Hello Seok

The Study follows all participants who are classified as original sample members (OSM), permanent sample members (PSM) or temporary sample members (TSM) if they are living with at least one OSM or PSM. The complete following rules are:

• Everyone enumerated in the households when a sample is selected is considered to be an Original Sample Member (OSM). Anyone who moves in with an OSM from onwards the subsequent wave is considered to be a Temporary Sample Member (TSM). The only exception is any non-ethnic minority individual enumerated in EMBS households in Wave 1 and IEMBS households in Wave 6. They are considered to be TSMs. Any child born to an OSM mother is an OSM. Any TSM who has a child with an OSM becomes a Permanent Sample Member (PSM). Note, in the BHPS children of OSM mothers and OSM fathers became OSMs. However, the new rules are applied to any children born to BHPS sample members after they became part of Understanding Society.

• OSMs and PSMs are always eligible for interviews as long as they are living in the UK. TSMs are eligible for interviews only if they live with at least one OSM or PSM. This means that when issuing the sample at the next wave, households which had been identified as containing only TSMs at the previous wave are not issued.

• There are other reasons that a household may not be issued at a particular wave, depending on information received between waves. Households are withdrawn if we are informed that a whole household has adamantly refused, or asked to withdraw from the study; has emigrated; has died; or is no longer mentally or physically capable of making an informed choice to consent.

• From Wave 4 onwards, until the COVID-19 pandemic, we also withdraw households as ‘dormant’ for which the outcome at the previous two consecutive waves were both non-contact, were both refusals, or there was a refusal two waves prior followed by a non-contact one wave prior. The rules to designate households as dormant were suspended after the COVID-19 pandemic. During this time, it had not been possible to interview sample members face-to-face, so keeping the dormant rules may have resulted in people who were not able or willing to take part online or on the phone being dropped from the sample.

I hope this information is helpful.

Best wishes,
Roberto Cavazos
Understanding Society User Support Team