International Social Survey Programme: Health and Health Care I-II Cumulation

The International Social Survey Programme (ISSP) is a continuous programme of cross-national collaboration running annual surveys on topics important for the social sciences. The programme started in 1984 with four founding members - Australia, Germany, Great Britain, and the United States – and has now grown to almost 50 member countries from all over the world. As the surveys are designed for replication, they can be used for both, cross-national and cross-time comparisons. Each ISSP module focuses on a specific topic, which is repeated in regular time intervals. Please, consult the documentation for details on how the national ISSP surveys are fielded. The present study focuses on questions about individual health and the health care system.

ISSP Health and Health Care I-II cumulates the data of the integrated data files of
• ISSP 2011 (ZA5800 Data file Version 3.0.0, https://doi.org/10.4232/1.12252) and
• ISSP 2021 (ZA8000 Data file Version 2.0.0, https://doi.org/10.4232/5.ZA8000.2.0.0).
It comprises data from all ISSP member countries participating in at least two Health and Health Care modules. The data set contains:
• Cumulated topic-related (substantial) variables, which appear in at least two Health and Health Care and
• background variables, mostly covering demographics, which appear in at least two Health and Health Care modules.<br>Satisfaction with life (happiness); confidence in the national health care system; justification for better healthcare for people with higher incomes; agreement with various statements on the healthcare system (People use health care services more than necessary, the government should provide only limited health care services, in general, the health care system in the country is inefficient); willingness to pay higher taxes to improve the level of health care for all people in the country; attitude towards the access to publicly funded health care for people without citizenship of the country and even if they behave in ways that damage their health; opinion on causes why people suffer from severe health problems (because they behaved in ways that damaged their health, because of the environment they are exposed to at work or where they live, because of their genes, because they are poor); alternative/ traditional or folk medicine provides better solutions for health problems than mainstream/ Western traditional medicine; assessment of doctors in general in the country (doctors can be trusted, the medical skills of doctors are not as good as they should be, doctors care more about their earnings than about their patients); frequency of difficulties with work or household activities because of health problems, bodily aches or pains, unhappiness and depression, loss of self-confidence and insuperable problems in the past four weeks; frequency of visits to/ by a doctor and an alternative/ traditional/ folk health care practitioner during the past 12 months; reasons why the respondent did not receive needed medical treatment (could not pay for it, could not take the time off work or because of other commitments, the waiting list was too long); likelihood of getting the best treatment available in the country in the case of seriously illness; satisfaction with the health care system in the country; satisfaction with treatment at the last visit to a doctor and to an alternative health care practitioner; smoker status and number of smoked cigarettes per day; frequency of drinking four or more alcoholic drinks on the same day, of strenuous physical activity for at least 20 minutes, and of eating fresh fruit or vegetables; assessment of personal health status; respondent has a long-standing illness, a chronic condition, or a disability; respondent’s height (in cm) and weight (in kg); kind of personal health insurance.

Demography: sex; age; years of birth; legal partnership status; steady life partner; education: years of schooling; highest education level; currently, formerly, or never in paid work (respondent and partner); employment relationship (respondent and partner); current employment status (respondent and partner); hours worked weekly (respondent and partner); occupation (ISCO 2008) (respondent and partner); supervising function at work (respondent and partner); number of other employees supervised; type of organization: for-profit vs. non-profit and public vs. private; trade union membership; household size; number of children above school entry age in household; number of children below school age in household; party affiliation (left-right); participation in last election; attendance of religious services; religious main groups (derived); Top Bottom self-placement; subjective social class; place of living urban – rural; household income groups (derived); country specific region.

Additionally coded: ID number of respondent; unique cumulation respondent ID number; Case substitution flag; date of interview (year, month, day); ISSP Module year; country; country sample; country sample year; weighting factor; administrative mode of data collection.