DOI: 10.5255/ukda-sn-9019-1
title: Understanding Society: COVID-19 Study Teaching Dataset, 2020-2021
title: UKHLS

description: &lt;p&gt;As the UK went into the first lockdown of the COVID-19 pandemic, the team behind the biggest social survey in the UK, &lt;a href="https://www.understandingsociety.ac.uk/"&gt;Understanding Society (UKHLS)&lt;/a&gt;, developed a way to capture these experiences. From April 2020, participants from this Study were asked to take part in the &lt;a href="https://www.understandingsociety.ac.uk/documentation/covid-19"&gt;Understanding Society COVID-19 survey&lt;/a&gt;, henceforth referred to as the COVID-19 survey or the COVID-19 study.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;The COVID-19 survey regularly asked people about their situation and experiences. The resulting data gives a unique insight into the impact of the pandemic on individuals, families, and communities. The COVID-19 Teaching Dataset contains data from the main COVID-19 survey in a simplified form. It covers topics such as&lt;/p&gt;&lt;ul&gt; &lt;li&gt;Socio-demographics&lt;/li&gt; &lt;li&gt;Whether working at home and home-schooling&lt;/li&gt; &lt;li&gt;COVID symptoms&lt;/li&gt; &lt;li&gt;Health and well-being&lt;/li&gt; &lt;li&gt;Social contact and neighbourhood cohesion&lt;/li&gt; &lt;li&gt;Volunteering&lt;/li&gt; &lt;/ul&gt;&lt;p&gt;The resource contains two data files:&lt;/p&gt;&lt;ul&gt; &lt;li&gt;Cross-sectional: contains data collected in Wave 4 in July 2020 (with some additional variables from other waves);&lt;/li&gt; &lt;li&gt;Longitudinal: Contains mainly data from Waves 1, 4 and 9 with key variables measured at three time points.&lt;/li&gt; &lt;/ul&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Key features of the dataset&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;ul&gt; &lt;li&gt;Missing values: in the web survey, participants clicking "Next" but not answering a question were given further options such as "Don't know" and "Prefer not to say". Missing observations like these are recorded using negative values such as -1 for "Don't know". In many instances, users of the data will need to set these values as missing. The User Guide includes Stata and SPSS code for setting negative missing values to system missing.&lt;/li&gt; &lt;/ul&gt;&lt;ul&gt; &lt;li&gt;The Longitudinal file is a balanced panel and is in wide format. A balanced panel means it only includes participants that took part in every wave. In wide format, each participant has one row of information, and each measurement of the same variable is a different variable.&lt;/li&gt; &lt;/ul&gt;&lt;ul&gt; &lt;li&gt;Weights: both the cross-sectional and longitudinal files include survey weights that adjust the sample to represent the UK adult population. The cross-sectional weight (betaindin_xw) adjusts for unequal selection probabilities in the sample design and for non-response. The longitudinal weight (ci_betaindin_lw) adjusts for the sample design and also for the fact that not all those invited to participate in the survey, do participate in all waves.&lt;/li&gt; &lt;/ul&gt;&lt;ul&gt; &lt;li&gt;Both the cross-sectional and longitudinal datasets include the survey design variables (psu and strata).&lt;/li&gt; &lt;/ul&gt;&lt;p&gt;A full list of variables in both files can be found in the User Guide appendix.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Who is in the sample?&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;All adults (16 years old and over as of April 2020), in households who had participated in at least one of the last two waves of the main study Understanding Society, were invited to participate in this survey. From the September 2020 (Wave 5) survey onwards, only sample members who had completed at least one partial interview in any of the first four web surveys were invited to participate. From the November 2020 (Wave 6) survey onwards, those who had only completed the initial survey in April 2020 and none since, were no longer invited to participate&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p class="x_x_x_MsoNormal"&gt; &lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;The User guide accompanying the data adds to the information here and includes a full variable list with details of measurement levels and links to the relevant questionnaire. &lt;/p&gt;