Title: Understanding the social impacts of coronavirus under different health restrictions: Longitudinal analysis using the ONS OPN Covid-19 survey
Funder: Economic and Social Research Council

Abstract: Data from the ONS OPN "Coronavirus and the Social Impacts on Great Britain" survey are used to assess social impacts as the crisis deepens. The study adopts a longitudinal approach to social impacts by merging 60-70 survey waves of data (March 2020 to September 2021). This provides a combined sample size of c.70,000 respondents, with sufficient statistical power to support a detailed subnational level analysis. The research objectives are as follows: (i) analyse, quantify and report on the social impacts of the coronavirus pandemic on people's health and subjective wellbeing (SWB) in Great Britain from a longitudinal perspective (RO1). (ii) analyse, quantify and report on the public understanding of information about the coronavirus, along with people's behavioural responses and actions to prevent disease spread (RO2). (iii) analyse, quantify and report on how individuals, families and communities are coping and managing risks, considering behavioural impacts and lifestyle changes and how people are building resilience during the pandemic (RO3). (iv) analyse, quantify and report on i, ii and iii under different conditions and governmental restrictions. The natural experiment in governmental responses allows us to examine the experiences of a variety of policy approaches across time and space in order to assess the outcomes and impacts of different public health policy interventions (RO4). This policy-orientated research is made possible thanks to the new OPN Coronavirus and the social impacts survey that has been in continual operation since 20/3/20. The microdata from this survey is made available to accredited researchers via the ONS Secure Research Service (SRS). PI Deeming is an ONS Accredited Researcher: AR 34168.

Lay abstract: Data from the 'Coronavirus and the Social Impacts on Great Britain' survey are used to assess social impacts as the COVID-19 crisis deepens. This project reports on the social impacts of the coronavirus pandemic on people's health and subjective wellbeing (SWB) in Great Britain; reports on the public understanding of information about the coronavirus, along with people's behavioural responses and actions to prevent disease spread; reports on how individuals, families and communities are coping and managing risks, considering behavioural impacts and lifestyle changes and how people are building resilience during the pandemic and the social impacts under different conditions and governmental restrictions. The study adopts a longitudinal approach to social impacts by merging survey data covering the period March 2020 to September 2021. This provides a combined sample size of c.70,000 respondents, with sufficient statistical power to support a detailed subnational level analysis. This policy-orientated research is made possible thanks to the new Coronavirus and social impacts survey that has been in continual operation since March 2020. The data from this survey is made available to accredited researchers by the UK Office for National Statistics.

Research activity codes: 2.4 SURVEILLANCE AND DISTRIBUTION;3.1 PRIMARY PREVENTION INTERVENTIONS TO MODIFY BEHAVIOURS OR PROMOTE WELL-BEING
Health categories: GENERIC HEALTH RELEVANCE;INFECTION