Gundi Knies

Correlates of obtaining informed consent to data linkage: respondent, interview and interviewer characteristics

In the United Kingdom, in order to link individual-level administrative records to survey responses, respondents need to give their consent. Using an unprecedented set of respondent, interview, and interviewer characteristics derived from the British Household Panel Survey (BHPS) matched with an interviewer survey, this research investigates which characteristics influence consent to adding health and social security records to the survey responses. We find that consent is related to respondents’ attitudes to privacy, community mindedness and data linkage salience as well as to some interview features such as the “household contagion effect” and the survey “fidelity.” Interviewer characteristics, including their personality, attitudes to persuading respondents, and job experience, are not associated with consent. Interviewers’ survey experience in the current wave and their task-specific experience, however, do influence consent. Implications of the findings are discussed and areas for future research are identified.

Life Events and Travel Behavior

Recent research has indicated that changes in travel behavior are more likely at the time of major life events. However, much remains to be learned about the extent to which different life events trigger behavioral change and the conditions under which life events are more likely to trigger change. The UK Household Longitudinal Study (UKHLS) offers a previously unavailable opportunity to investigate this topic for a large, representative sample of the UK population. UKHLS data were also linked to local spatial data drawn from the census and other sources to elucidate the effect of the spatial context on changes to travel behavior in association with life events. Findings from an exploratory analysis of data from UKHLS Waves 1 and 2 are presented first. Transition tables demonstrate a strong association between changes in car ownership and commute mode and the following life events: employment changes, residential relocation, retirement, the birth of children, and changes in household structure. The results of logit models that relate the probability of an increase and a decrease in the number of cars owned to the occurrence of life events and that control for individual and household characteristics and spatial context are then shown. These models show, for example, that moves to urban and rural areas have contrasting effects on travel behavior and that having a new child in itself is not a significant influence on car ownership in the short term.

Consenting to health record linkage: evidence from a multi-purpose longitudinal survey of a general population

BackgroundThe British Household Panel Survey (BHPS) is the first long-running UK longitudinal survey with a non-medical focus and a sample covering the whole age range to have asked for permission to link to a range of administrative health records. This study determines whether informed consent led to selection bias and reflects on the value of the BHPS linked with health records for epidemiological research.MethodsMultivariate logistical regression is used, with whether the respondent gave consent to data linkage or not as the dependent variable. Independent variables were entered as four blocks; (i) a set of standard demographics likely to be found in most health registration data, (ii) a broader set of socio-economic characteristics, (iii) a set of indicators of health conditions and (iv) information about the use of health services.ResultsParticipants aged 16-24, males and those living in England were more likely to consent. Consent is not biased with respect to socio-economic characteristics or health. Recent users of GP services are underrepresented among consenters.ConclusionsWhilst data could only be linked for a minority of BHPS participants, the BHPS offers a great range of information on peoples life histories, their attitudes and behaviours making it an invaluable source for epidemiological research.

Propensity to consent to data linkage: experimental evidence on the role of three survey design features in a UK longitudinal panel

When performing data linkage, survey respondents need to provide their informed consent. Since not all respondents agree to this request, the linked data-set will have fewer observations than the survey data-set alone and bias may be introduced. By focusing on the role that survey design features play in gaining respondents’ consent, this paper provides an innovative contribution to the studies in this field. Analysing experimental data collected in a nationally representative household panel survey of the British population, we find that interview features such as question format (dependent/independent questions) and placement of the consent question within the questionnaire have an impact on consent rates.

Life Satisfaction, Ethnicity and Neighbourhoods: Is There an Effect of Neighbourhood Ethnic Composition on Life Satisfaction?

Immigrants and ethnic minorities tend to have lower life satisfaction than majority populations. However, current understanding of the drivers of these gaps is limited. Using a rich, nationally representative data set with a large sample of ethnic minorities and matched neighbourhood characteristics, we test whether first and second generation minorities experience lower life satisfaction once accounting for compositional differences and whether, specifically, neighbourhood deprivation impacts their wellbeing. We further investigate whether a larger proportion of own ethnic group in the neighbourhood improves satisfaction. We find life satisfaction is lower among ethnic minorities, and especially for the second generation, even controlling for individual and area characteristics. Neighbourhood concentration of own ethnic group is, however, associated with higher life satisfaction for Black Africans and UK born Indians and Pakistanis. The effect for Black Africans may stem from selection into areas, but findings for Indians and Pakistanis are robust to sensitivity tests.

Keeping Up with the Schmidts - An Empirical Test of Relative Deprivation Theory in the Neighbourhood Context

We test empirically whether peoples life satisfaction depends on their relative income position in the neighbourhood, drawing on a unique dataset, the German Socio-economic Panel Study (SOEP) matched with micro-marketing indicators of population characteristics. Relative deprivation theory suggests that individuals are happier the better their relative income position in the neighbourhood is. To test this theory we estimate micro-economic happiness models for the years 1994 and 1999 with controls for own income and for neighbourhood income at the zip-code level (roughly 9,000 people). There exist no negative and no statistically significant associations between neighbourhood income and life satisfaction, which refutes relative deprivation theory. If anything, we find positive associations between neighbourhood income and happiness in all cross-sectional models and this is robust to a number of robustness tests, including adding in more controls for neighbourhood quality, changing the outcome variable, and interacting neighbourhood income with indicators that proxy the extent to which individuals may be assumed to interact with their neighbours. We argue that the scale at which we measure neighbourhood characteristics may be too large still to identify the comparison effect sought after.

Analysis of four studies in a comparative framework reveals: health linkage consent rates on British cohort studies higher than on UK household panel surveys

BackgroundA number of cohort studies and longitudinal household panel studies in Great Britain have asked for consent to link survey data to administrative health data. We explore commonalities and differences in the process of collecting consent, achieved consent rates and biases in consent with respect to socio-demographic, socio-economic and health characteristics. We hypothesise that British cohort studies which are rooted within the health sciences achieve higher consent rates than the UK household longitudinal studies which are rooted within the social sciences. By contrast, the lack of a specific health focus in household panel studies means there may be less selectivity in consent, in particular, with respect to health characteristics.MethodsSurvey designs and protocols for collecting informed consent to health record linkage on two British cohort studies and two UK household panel studies are systematically compared. Multivariate statistical analysis is then performed on information from one cohort and two household panel studies that share a great deal of the data linkage protocol but vary according to study branding, survey design and study population.ResultsWe find that consent is higher in the British cohort studies than in the UK household panel studies, and is higher the more health-focused the study is. There are no systematic patterns of consent bias across the studies and where effects exist within a study or study type they tend to be small. Minority ethnic groups will be underrepresented in record linkage studies on the basis of all three studies.ConclusionsSystematic analysis of three studies in a comparative framework suggests that the factors associated with consent are idiosyncratic to the study. Analysis of linked health data is needed to establish whether selectivity in consent means the resulting research databases suffer from any biases that ought to be considered.

The Relationship between Socioeconomic Status, Family Income, and Measures of Muscular and Cardiorespiratory Fitness in Colombian Schoolchildren

Objective To determine the associations between socioeconomic status (SES) and physical fitness in a sample of Colombian youth. Study design Prueba SER is cross‐sectional survey of schoolchildren in Bogota, Colombia. Mass, stature, muscular fitness (standing long‐jump, handgrip), and cardiorespiratory fitness (20‐m shuttle run) were measured in 52 187 schoolchildren 14‐16 years of age. Area‐level SES was categorized from 1 (very low) to 4 (high) and parent‐reported family income was categorized as low, middle, or high. Results Converting measures into z scores showed stature, muscular, and cardiorespiratory fitness were significantly (z = 0.3‐0.7) below European values. Children in the mid‐ and high SES groups jumped significantly further than groups with very low SES. Differences were independent of sex but became nonsignificant when adjusted for anthropometric differences. Participants in the mid‐SES and high‐SES groups had better handgrip scores when adjusted for body dimension. There were, however, no significant between‐group differences in cardiorespiratory fitness, which was strongly clustered by school and significantly greater in students from private schools. Conclusions Area‐level SES is associated with measures of muscular fitness in Colombian schoolchildren. These associations were largely explained by the large differences in body dimensions observed between SES groups. When area‐level SES is considered, there was no evidence that family income influenced fitness. The clustering of outcomes reaffirms the potential importance of schools and area‐level factors in promoting fitness through opportunities for physical activity. Interventions implemented in schools, can improve academic attainment; a factor likely to be important in promoting the social mobility of children from poorer families.

Neighbourhood social ties: how much do residential, physical and virtual mobility matter?†

Following up on the prediction by classical sociological theorists that neighbours will become irrelevant as societies become more mobile, this research examines the strength of peoples social ties with neighbours and the associations thereof with residential, physical and virtual mobility using longitudinal data for Germany. Unlike previous studies, the research considers the three forms of mobility simultaneously and contrasts its effects on social ties with neighbours to those with family. The results show that residential and physical mobility are negatively associated with social ties to neighbours and positively with ties to family. Virtual mobility does not weaken social ties with neighbours but ties with family. The positive association between mobility and social ties with family may not be strong enough to ascertain that people maintain as close social ties to others in the future as it does not outweigh the negative association with visiting neighbours.

Exploring the Value of Understanding Society for Neighbourhood Effects Analyses

Related data set “Understanding Society: Waves 1-6, 2009-2015” with DOI http://dx.doi.org/10.5255/UKDA-SN-6614-7 in repository “UK Data Service”.Understanding Society is a large representative household panel study for the UK. The study follows the same 40,000 households over time, beginning in 2009 and providing a detailed picture of how people’s lives are changing. One of the many innovative features of Understanding Society is that a great deal of information about neighbourhoods can be used alongside the individual and household-level information collected in the study, making it a useful study for neighbourhood effects analyses. In this paper we explore four Understanding Society data products, based on four different types of rural-urban neighbourhood classifications, to throw light on how much heterogeneity in neighbourhood contexts is captured in the first waves of Understanding Society, including change in neighbourhood contexts.