Understanding Society: Waves 2-3 Nurse Health Assessment, 2010-2012

<p><span style="font-style: italic;">Understanding Society</span>, (UK Household Longitudinal Study), which began in 2009, is conducted by the Institute for Social and Economic Research (ISER) at the University of Essex and the survey research organisations Verian Group (formerly Kantar Public) and NatCen. It builds on and incorporates, the British Household Panel Survey (BHPS), which began in 1991.</p>
<p>The Understanding Society Wave 2 Nurse Health Assessment, conducted in 2010-2012, was completed with 15,646 adult participants from the General Population component living in England, Scotland or Wales who completed a full Wave 2 interview. In addition, blood samples were obtained from 9,920 individuals. The Wave 3 Nurse Health Assessment, conducted in 2011-2012, was completed with the BHPS sample component. Assessments were conducted with 5,053 individuals and blood samples were obtained from 3,366 individuals. The Nurse Health Assessment, which included physical measures, such as height, weight, lung function, blood pressure and grip strength, as well as a range of blood samples, followed the main wave interview by approximately five months. As well as a range of blood analytes, two proteomic panels have been produced and a number of epigenetic ageing variables have been derived. The physical measures, biomarkers and questionnaire data from the Nurse Health Assessment interview are available from the UK Data Service. Genetics and epigenetic information is also available, with and without survey data; see the Understanding Society website for more information - https://www.understandingsociety.ac.uk/topic-page/biomarkers-genetics-and-epigenetics.</p>
<p>For information on the main Understanding Society study, see SN 6614, Understanding Society and Harmonised BHPS.</p>
<p>The Special Licence version of the Understanding Society: Nurse Health Assessment study is held under SN 7587. It contains variables covering prescription medication codes and associated usage questions, together with polygenic score variables, derived from analysis of the genetics data, that are not included in the standard End User Licence version (SN 7251). Users are advised to check that study first to see if the data are suitable for their needs before making an application for the Special Licence version. See documentation for further details.</p>
<p><b>Latest edition information</b></p>
<p>For the 6th edition (June 2025) five new biomarker variables have been deposited. There is also a new ageing (clock) variable and others have been renamed. Various other changes have also been made across multiple data files. The User Guides have also been updated. For full details please refer to the document '7251_revisions_june_2025.pdf' and to the User Guides.</p>
<p><b>Suitable data analysis software</b></p>
<p>These data are provided by the depositor in Stata format. Users are strongly advised to analyse them in Stata. Transfer to other formats may result in unforeseen issues. Stata SE or MP software is needed to analyse the larger files, which contain over 2,047 variables.</p>
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