Understanding Society User Support

Dear Akansha,

1. Can the COVID survey data be linked to the main UKHLS survey and to the household, adult and youth datasets? Were these the same people?

Short answer: Yes, they can be linked. The COVID-19 surveys are an additional panel run with Understanding Society sample members, not a separate study. You should link using pidp. Household identifiers corresponding to the main survey are also included in the COVID-19 survey data (i_hidp, j_hidp, k_hidp, referring to households in main waves 9–11), which allow linking COVID households back to the main-stage household files.

Conceptually, you are following a sub-sample of the same people over additional measurement occasions during the pandemic, not switching to a new sample. See the user guide for details about who was included: https://www.understandingsociety.ac.uk/documentation/covid-19/user-guide/

2. Which main survey waves do the COVID waves (May 2020, July 2020, January 2021) correspond to or sit between?

There is no exact one-to-one mapping of each COVID wave to a single main wave, because main waves are fielded over 24-month periods with overlapping fieldwork (see https://www.understandingsociety.ac.uk/documentation/mainstage/survey-timeline/
). That said, for most respondents, the COVID-19 waves overlap with waves 11, 12 and 13 of the main survey.

3. When exactly were the main waves conducted (were they conducted all in one go as one questionnaire?)

Fieldwork for one mainstage survey wave spans 24 months; please see the timeline for details (https://www.understandingsociety.ac.uk/documentation/mainstage/survey-timeline/). For each respondent one wave includes data from one data collection/one interview. We interview people at roughly one year intervals. You can also check the following variables to get the precise interview date for each respondent.

Main survey:

intdatd_dv – Interview date (day)

intdatm_dv – Interview date (month)

intdaty_dv – Interview date (year)

COVID-19 survey:

cW_surveystart – Date & time the respondent started the COVID web survey

cW_surveyend – Date & time the respondent ended the COVID web survey

I hope this helps.

Best wishes,
Piotr Marzec
UKHLS User Support