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Overview

The Northern Ireland Longitudinal Study, ONS Longitudinal Study (England and Wales), and Scottish Longitudinal Study include a vast range of data relevant to many different types of research question. Their combination of administrative, census and health data across time make them a rich and unique set of resources. Examples of the types of research enabled by these features of the LSs include: Assessing the contributions of the workplace and employment history, the local area, and individual health and social factors from childhood and adulthood to extended working life, The role of subject choices in secondary education on further education studies and labour market outcomes and Population characteristics of stigma, condition disclosure and chronic health conditions.

As an exploration of the many ways in which the LSs have been used, CALLS have conducted an analysis of the journal papers produced by LS researchers. This citation analysis demonstrates the impressive range of academic fields to which LS-based research has contributed in the last 7 years. Research featured in over 70 journals, and spanned more than 50 Scopus subject categories.

Research based on the LSs is regularly published in top quality international peer reviewed journals such as Demography, the International Journal of Epidemiology and Population, Space and Place. Eighteen papers included in the citation analysis were published in journals ranked within the top 5 for one of the following SCImago subject areas:

• Geography, Planning and Development
• Epidemiology
• Demography
• Health (Social Science)
• Urban Studies
• Community and Home Care
• Applied Psychology
• Pulmonary and Respiratory Medicine
• Biotechnology

Papers had excellent citation rates indicating the unique contribution LS data offer. Forty papers had been cited 10 or more times, and 13 papers had more than 20 citations.

The subject categories of papers using the LSs reflect the strengths of the data that they offer. Whilst the categories were very similar,  ONS LS’s top 5 included ‘Demography’, whereas the SLS and NILS had a higher proportion of ‘Health (social science)’ papers, likely due to their excellent linkages with health data.

Overall the analysis shows the valuable contribution of the NILS, ONS LS and SLS to a diverse range of academic fields including medicine, demography, geography, economics, business, psychology, environmental science and more.

Although we only focus on publications in academic journals in this report, LS research has considerable impact in other formats such as briefing notes, books and presentations to government, and has also formed the basis of a variety of PhD Theses. A full list of outputs can be explored in our outputs database.

The raw data for the analysis can be downloaded at the bottom of this page.

Methods

Using the CALLS Hub outputs database a total of 139 published papers from the period January 2010 – October 2017 were identified from the three LSs. It should be noted that whilst CALLS and the RSUs actively solicit LS users to notify them of all outputs, and also conduct occasional literature searches to maximise capture, it is possible that some further papers exist.

All papers published in journals or regularly produced official publications – such as ONS Population Trends – were included. We did not include working papers in this analysis. Citation counts were gathered from Scopus, taking the final counts as of 21 November 2017. Impact Factors were taken from the Scopus project SCImago using the SJR2 indicator.

Results

The LSs combined

Of the 139 papers identified, 16 were from non-peer-reviewed journals such as Population Trends. Ten papers used more than one LS for their analysis. (see figure 1)

figure 1. Number of published papers per LS, Jan 2010 – October 2017. n = 139

Papers from the three LSs were published in a total of 73 different journals, spanning 52 SCImago Subject Categories in 13 Subject Areas (figure 2). SJR Impact Factors for the journals ranged from 0.104 to 10.113, with an average of 1.573.

figure 2: Number of LS papers published by SCImago Subject Area [CLICK TO ENLARGE]

The 5 most frequent subject categories for LS papers were:

1. Public Health, Environment & Occupational Health (39 papers)
2. Geography, Planning & Development (27 papers)
3. Medicine(misc) (26 papers)
4. Health(social science) (22 papers)
5. Epidemiology (21 papers)

The ten most cited papers from the three LSs were:

 Northern Ireland Longitudinal Study

During the period January 2010 to October 2017, a total of 41 journal papers were found which had used NILS data, including 3 paper which had used all 3 LSs and one which used the SLS and NILS. Five NILS publications appeared journals with top-5 ranked impact factor.

NILS journal papers were published in 27 different journals, spanning 13 SCImago Subject Areas and 33 Subject Categories (see below). SJR Impact Factors for the papers ranged from 0.216 to 4.914, with an average of 1.631.

figure 3: Number of NILS papers published by SCImago Subject Area [CLICK TO ENLARGE]

The 5 most frequent subject categories for NILS papers were:

1. Public Health, Environmental & Occupational Health (15 papers)
2. Geography, Planning & Development (10 papers)
3. Health(social science) (10 papers)
4. Epidemiology (7 papers)
5. Medicine(misc) (5 papers)

The 10 most cited NILS papers were:

ONS LS

During the period in question, 70 journal papers were identified as having been produced from ONS LS projects (including 9 papers which also used other LSs). Of these, 14 appeared in non peer-reviewed journals. Nine papers appeared in top-5 ranked journals.

ONS LS papers appeared in 42 journals, and covered 27 SCImago Subject Categories in 9 Subject Areas. SJR Impact Factors for the journals ranged from 0.104 to 10.113 with an average of 1.443.

figure 4: Number of ONS LS papers published by SCImago Subject Area [CLICK TO ENLARGE]

The most frequent subject categories in which ONS LS papers appeared were:

1. Medicine(misc) (15 papers)
2. Public Health, Environmental & Occupational Health (14 papers)
3. Demography (12 papers)
4. Geography, Planning & Development (11 papers)
5. Epidemiology (11 papers)

The most cited ONS LS papers were:

Scottish Longitudinal Study

During the period January 2010 – October 2017, 43 SLS-based journal papers were identified (including 10 papers which also used other LSs). Of these, 2 appeared in non peer-reviewed journals. Four papers were published in top-5 ranked journals.

The SLS papers were published in 33 different journals, spanning 32 SCImago Subject Categories in 12 Subject Areas. SJR Impact Factors for the journals ranged from 0.173 to 5.895, with an average of 1.466.

figure 5: Number of SLS papers published by SCImago Subject Area [CLICK TO ENLARGE]

SLS papers appeared most frequently under the following subject categories:

1. Public Health, Environmental & Occupational Health (13 papers)
2. Medicine(misc) (8 papers)
3. Geography, Planning & Development (7 papers)
4. Health(social science) (7 papers)
5. Epidemiology (4 papers)
6. Agricultural and Biological Sciences (misc) (4 papers)
7. Biochemistry, Genetics & Molecular Biology (4 papers)

The 10 most cited SLS papers were:

Explore the full database of LS outputs

Raw data (Excel, 83kB)