Understanding Society User Support

Hi Leolo,
we do not provide a combined BHPS/Understanding Society, but the BHPS member’s pid is included in the Understanding Society data files so it is easy to link the information longitudinally across the studies. Whilst the BHPS sample is incorporated in the UKHLS, this does not mean all questions and response categories, variable names, following rules and weighting strategies have been carried over.

With respect to identifying common questions/variables, you may find it useful to know that questions which were already carried on the BHPS appear with the source information “BHPS” in the questionnaires, and many variables continue to have the same name (but there were some overruling naming conventions in Understanding Society). The content of the data files is also principally the same, so if you are familiar with the BHPS it will not present too many hurdles to use responses from BHPS sample members in Understanding Society.

You may also find it useful to have a look at our Stata/SPSS/SAS online training courses; it includes a worked example for continuing to use information from the BHPS sample members in Understanding Society (see Example 9). See https://www.understandingsociety.ac.uk/documentation/training/online about how to access the training course materials.

In the meantime, we would like to encourage users to share with other users any variable look-ups they have created for Understanding Society and BHPS. We may also be able to include this information as part of both studies' online documentations in the future.

Best wishes,
Gundi