DOI: 10.5255/ukda-sn-8664-7
title: Understanding Society: COVID-19 Study, 2020-2021: Special Licence Access, Local Authority District
title: Understanding Society, Waves 1-, 2008- : Safeguarded/Special Licence
title: UKHLS; United Kingdom Household Longitudinal Study

description: &lt;span style="font-style: italic;"&gt;Understanding Society&lt;/span&gt; (the UK Household Longitudinal Study), which began in 2009, is conducted by the Institute for Social and Economic Research (ISER) at the University of Essex, and the survey research organisations Verian Group (formerly Kantar Public) and NatCen. It builds on and incorporates, the British Household Panel Survey (BHPS), which began in 1991. 
&lt;p&gt;&lt;span&gt;The &lt;i&gt;Understanding Society &lt;/i&gt;COVID-19 Study is a regular survey of households in the UK. The aim of the study is to enable research on the socio-economic and health consequences of the COVID-19 pandemic, in the short and long term. The surveys started in April 2020 and took place monthly until July 2020. From September they took place every other month until March 2021 and the final wave was fielded in September 2021. They complement the annual interviews of the
&lt;i&gt;Understanding Society&lt;/i&gt; study.&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;A file is provided for each wave of the &lt;em&gt;Understanding Society&lt;/em&gt; COVID-19 study to date, containing the Local Authority District geographic variable and a personal identification serial number (pidp) for file matching to the main &lt;em&gt;Understanding Society&lt;/em&gt; COVID-19 study (&lt;a title="SN 8644" href="https://beta.ukdataservice.ac.uk/datacatalogue/studies/study?id=8644"&gt;SN 8644&lt;/a&gt;). There are two types of waves: web waves have a filename postfix of _w and telephone waves have a filename postfix of _t.&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;In addition, this study also contains Local Authority District geographic variables that can be matched to a dataset released with the main &lt;em&gt;Understanding Society&lt;/em&gt; COVID-19 study containing data taken from waves 10 and 11 of the main &lt;em&gt;Understanding Society&lt;/em&gt; survey, specifically for the respondents in the COVID-19 study. This file is named jk_oslaua_cv and as well as the LSOA11 geographic variable, it also contains a personal identification serial number (pidp) and a household identification serial number for both wave 10 (j_hidp) and wave 11 (k_hidp). Further details can be found in the &lt;em&gt;Understanding Society&lt;/em&gt; COVID-19 User Guide.&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;Further information can be found on the &lt;a title="Understanding Society COVID-19" href="https://www.understandingsociety.ac.uk/topic/covid-19"&gt;Understanding Society COVID-19&lt;/a&gt; website, including &lt;a title="Data documentation" href="https://www.understandingsociety.ac.uk/documentation/covid-19"&gt;Data documentation&lt;/a&gt;. A list of &lt;a title="Understanding Society COVID-19 Research Outputs" href="https://www.understandingsociety.ac.uk/research/publications/subject/Covid%2019"&gt;Understanding Society COVID-19 Research Outputs&lt;/a&gt; (regularly updated) is also available.&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;New edition information&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;For the seventh edition (December 2021), the new data file for wave 9 has been deposited.&lt;/p&gt;