Scottish Health Survey, 2021

The <i>Scottish Health Survey</i> (SHeS) series was established in 1995. Commissioned by the Scottish Government Health Directorates, the series provides regular information on aspects of the public's health and factors related to health which cannot be obtained from other sources. The SHeS series was designed to:<ul><li>estimate the prevalence of particular health conditions in Scotland;</li><li>estimate the prevalence of certain risk factors associated with these health conditions and to document the pattern of related health behaviours;</li><li>look at differences between regions and between subgroups of the population in the extent of their having these particular health conditions or risk factors, and to make comparisons with other national statistics for Scotland and England;</li><li>monitor trends in the population's health over time;</li><li>make a major contribution to monitoring progress towards health targets.</li></ul>Each survey in the series includes a set of core questions and measurements (height and weight and, if applicable, blood pressure, waist circumference, urine and saliva samples), plus modules of questions on specific health conditions that vary from year to year. Each year the core sample has also been augmented by an additional boosted sample for children. Since 2008 NHS Health Boards have also had the opportunity to boost the number of adult interviews carried out in their area. <br>
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The Scottish Government <a href="https://www.gov.scot/collections/scottish-health-survey/" title="Scottish Health Survey">Scottish Health Survey</a> webpages contain further information about the series, including latest news and publications. <br>
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<p><b>Latest edition information</b></p>
<p>For the third edition (March 2026), the SHeS 2021 EUL datafile has been updated to include new ‘Intake24’ dietary recall data. The data consists of two methodologies, the first being the ‘day average’ (these variables are suffixed with ‘_DA’) and the second is ‘usual intakes’ (variables suffixed with ‘_UI’). The ‘usual intakes’ was introduced for SHeS 2024 reporting and the 2021 variables were recalculated where possible to enable comparisons. The variables from the file ‘shes21 intake24 person level additional variables eul’ have been matched on to the main reporting file so that all person-level Intake24 data is in the same datafile. As such, this file has been removed from the study Archive.</p>