Understanding Society: The UK Household Longitudinal Study: Waves 9-11

了解社会：英国家庭纵向研究是世界上最大的家庭小组研究，它解决了21世纪的关键科学和政策问题。它收集了代表英国人口的家庭中所有年龄的个人的高质量年度纵向数据。这些数据使研究人员能够探索人们生活变化的经验、原因和后果——他们的家庭结构、健康、收入、支出、就业和住房——这些都是当今决策者的关键问题。该研究还提供了额外的样本，可以详细探讨主要移民和少数民族群体的情况；并收集有关认知、健康和遗传学的客观测量数据，以了解人们的健康与更广泛的环境如何相互作用。此外，该研究还投资于创新的数据收集方式，以不断改进现有数据的内容和质量。因此，总的来说，这项研究使研究成果能够为政策和实践提供信息。该研究于2008年启动，成立了一个创新小组来测试方法，并于2009年进行了第一波主要的实地工作。迄今为止，四波主要研究和六波创新小组，以及从护士访问中收集的数据和来自血液样本的数据，都存放在英国数据服务中心。海浪5-8的数据收集和规划正在进行中；本次投标包括Waves 9-11和相关活动的数据收集费用。基于仔细的实验研究和评估，在Waves 9-11中，研究将转向混合模式数据收集-这意味着人们可以面对面或在线完成问卷。这最大限度地提高了受访者的灵活性，但考虑到人们可能会根据面试官是否问他们问题而以不同的方式回答问题，这给数据用户带来了复杂性。对我们的工作至关重要的是支持数据用户，确保他们能够有效地使用这些复杂的数据。政策和研究议程在不断发展，在纵向研究中，重要的是要平衡创造长系列的相同问题，包括解决新兴主题的问题，并有效利用新的数据收集方法。在此资助期内，我们将推行一项创新计划，引进新技术，使我们能够收集更好的数据，以解决关键的社会科学和政策问题。我们还将与Topic Champions合作，改进调查的内容以及向用户展示数据的方式。支持大学、政府、第三部门和企业的研究人员有效地使用数据是研究成功的基础。因此，我们将投资改善我们对研究的用户支持，并以不同的方式共享数据，使不同类型的用户更容易分析数据。我们还有一个政策组，直接与政府部门和第三部门组织合作，确保他们充分了解如何使用“理解社会”数据来解决他们的政策问题，并在适当的时候帮助他们这样做。我们还有一个影响研究员，支持政策使用者和研究人员有效地合作，产生影响。在此资助期内，随着更多的研究数据发布给数据使用者，研究的价值将显著增加，因为它可以用来回答更多关于不同类型的变化对人们生活的影响的问题。我们将为用户创造广泛的机会来分享他们的发现，例如在会议和研讨会上，通过Insights，通过在网站和社交媒体上推广出版物和案例研究，以及通过创建用户在线社区使他们能够相互交流。

Understanding Society: the UK Household Longitudinal Study is the largest household panel study in the world which addresses the key scientific and policy questions of the 21st century. It collects high quality annual longitudinal data on individuals of all ages in households representative of the UK population. Such data enables researchers to explore the experience, causes and consequences of changes in people's lives - their family structure, health, income, expenditure, employment and housing - key issues for policy makers today. The Study also has additional samples that allow the detailed exploration of the circumstances of key immigrant and ethnic minority groups; and collects data on cognition, objective measures of health and genetics to understand how people's health and wider circumstances interact. Additionally, the Study invests in innovative ways of collecting data to continually improve the content and quality of data available. Overall, therefore, the Study enables the production of research to inform policy and practice. The Study was inaugurated in 2008 with an Innovation Panel to test methods and the first main wave of fieldwork in 2009. To date four waves of the main study and six waves of the Innovation Panel, as well as data collected from a nurse visit and derived from blood samples, are deposited in the UK Data Service. Data collection and planning are ongoing for Waves 5-8; this bid covers the costs of data collection for Waves 9-11 and associated activities.Based on careful experimental research and evaluation, in Waves 9-11 the Study will move to mixed mode data collection - meaning people will be able to complete the questionnaire face-to-face or online. This maximises flexibility for respondents, but given people may answer questions differently, depending on whether an interviewer is asking them or not, it creates complexities for data users. Crucial to our work will be to support data users to ensure they are able to use such complex data effectively. Policy and research agendas are constantly evolving, and it is important in a longitudinal study to balance creating long series of the same questions with including questions that address emerging topics and make effective use of new approaches to data collection. In this funding period, we will undertake a programme of innovation to bring in new technologies, enabling us to collect better data to address critical social science and policy issues. We will also work with Topic Champions to improve the content of the survey and the way we present the data to users. Supporting researchers in universities, government, third sector and businesses to use the data effectively is fundamental to the success of the Study. We will therefore invest in improving our user support for the Study and sharing the data in different ways to make them easier for different kind of users to analyse. We also have a Policy Unit that directly works with government departments and third sector organisations to ensure that they are fully aware of how Understanding Society data can be used to address their policy concerns and to help them do so where appropriate, and an Impact Fellow who supports both policy users and researchers to work effectively together to generate impact. During this funding period, as more waves of the Study are released to data users, the value of the study will increase significantly as it can be used to answer more questions about the effect of different kinds of changes on people's lives. We will create a wide range of opportunities for users to share their findings - for example at conferences and workshops, through Insights, by promoting publications and case studies on the website and through social media - and by creating an online community of users so that they can engage with each other.