Understanding Society User Support

Hi Ben,

You want to know whether you should include the EMB and BHPS samples along with the General Population Sample (GPS) in your analysis. That depends on your research question and whether you are planning on using weights.

If you are using weights: Due to the complex survey design and multiple survey instruments, a large number of weights would be needed for all the different types of analysis that can be done. So, decision was taken to produce those weights which would allow most type of analyses that users are likely to do. For example, from onwards Wave 3, if you are doing cross-sectionaly analysis then you will need to use all 3 samples as weights are provided for cross-sectional analysis using all 3 samples. Depeding on your analysis plan and the types of weights available you will be able to decide which samples you should use. Please look at the relevant section in the User Guide on weights. There are some useful tables that tell you which weights to use based on the sample, type of analysis, survey instrument that you plan to use.

If you are not using weights, you should read the section on weights in the User Guide to know the assumptions you are making by not using weights. If you are ok with making those assumptions, then you could use GPS only if you are not interested in ethnic group differences, but you should use GPS+EMB if you are. For cross-sectional analysis using the BHPS will boost sample sizes. Please also read the section in the User Guide about the composition of the different samples to understand the coverage of each sample and (variable) selection probabilities across the samples. This will help you decide.

Best wishes,
Alita