Linking health and education data for research to improve outcomes for children in England

在儿童和青少年时期，教育与健康密切相关。这些联系对弱势或处境不利的儿童尤其重要，因为对他们来说，一个领域的挑战往往同时出现，或在另一个领域造成困难。虽然苏格兰、威尔士和北欧国家越来越多地使用关联数据来改善慢性病儿童的健康和教育，但英格兰的使用情况参差不齐。该项目将通过将英格兰所有儿童的教育和健康数据联系起来，弥合这一知识差距。我们的目标是创建一个研究就绪的数据集，即All Years Dataset，它可以用于未来的研究，以改善英格兰儿童的结果。首先，我们将基于现有的200万儿童的教育-健康数据集进行战略研究。将利用关于保健和教育数据之间联系的准确性的证据来改进“全年数据集”。我们将进行研究，以展示数据如何用于为政策提供信息，并制作手册或元数据，以帮助未来的研究人员理解和使用数据集。我们将让公众参与制定优先事项，为未来的研究使用所有年份数据集。All Years Dataset将链接两个数据集的儿童。国家学生数据库，其中载有2002年以来英格兰所有儿童的教育记录;医院事件统计，其中载有1997年以来医院护理的信息。链接的数据集将是匿名的，这意味着它不包含任何可以直接识别某人的个人信息。这些数据将在安全的环境中进行分析，由国家统计局和NHS Digital托管。进入这些环境将受到严格控制。不能从这些环境中取出任何记录级数据，并且在发布摘要数据之前将对其进行检查。该项目将促进未来在一系列卫生和社会科学学科的研究，并将支持研究，以改善儿童健康、教育和福祉的决策。

Education and health are deeply connected in childhood and adolescence. These links are particularly important for vulnerable or disadvantaged children, for whom challenges in one domain often occur alongside or cause difficulties in the other. Whilst Scotland, Wales and the Nordic countries are increasingly using linked data to improve health and education for children with chronic conditions, use in England is patchy. This project will bridge this gap in knowledge by linking education and health data for all children in England. Our aim is to create a research-ready dataset, the All Years Dataset, which can be used in future research to improve outcomes for children in England.Firstly, we will carry out strategic research based on an existing linked education-health dataset of a subset of 2 million children. Evidence on the accuracy of linkage between health and education data will be used to improve the All Years Dataset. We will produce research to show how the data can be used to inform policy and produce a manual, or metadata, to help future researchers to understand and use the dataset. We will involve the public in developing priorities for future studies using the All Years Dataset. The All Years Dataset will link children across two datasets. The National Pupil Database, which contains education records for all children in England from 2002 onwards and Hospital Episode Statistics, which contains information on hospital care from 1997 onwards. The linked dataset will be anonymised, meaning that it does not contain any personal information that could directly identify someone. The data will be analysed in secure environments, hosted by the Office of National Statistics and by NHS Digital. Access to these environments will be strictly controlled. No record level data will be able to be taken out of these environments and summary data will be checked before being released. The project will facilitate future research across a range of health and social science disciplines and will support research to improve policymaking for children's health, education and wellbeing.