Dawn Everington, SLS-DSU

SLS-DSU have been working on an exciting new data development which will soon be available to researchers. We have been given access to postcode of residence and date of each NHS GP registration since 1 January 2000.  This provides users with a means of locating their SLS sample continuously rather than only once every 10 years at the time of the censuses.

Besides projects primarily interested in internal migration, these data will be also useful to those investigating how the local environment affects outcomes, such as the recent project which looked at proximity to green space, forests and health services. The length of time spent at each address could be incorporated into analyses, or location might be explored in relation to wider policy measures or events such as the economic recession.

An early test dataset was supplied to project 2016_003 ‘Economic change and internal population dynamics: an innovative study of new residential mobilities in Scotland’. Results from these analyses have been presented at several seminars and conferences (see list at the bottom of the project page) and there are plans to publish papers.

The online data dictionary has now been updated with Table E10 which contains the raw data and some derived variables. Although many of these cannot be accessed by researchers due to the risk of disclosure (marked as restriction level 2), we are in the process of producing further derived variables such as flags, which users can access. We will soon produce a working paper which will document the data sources and processing of the data, describe the variables in table E10, compare the enumeration postcodes with the postcodes recorded in the NHS data, and provide other information that will be helpful when using and interpreting these data.

For further information see this blog post or contact SLS-DSU at sls@lscs.ac.uk.

Dawn Everington