New dataset launched by the Longitudinal Studies Centre – Scotland

A dataset offering a wealth of information on the Scottish population has been created by the Longitudinal Studies Centre – Scotland. The dataset, known as the Scottish Longitudinal Study (SLS), links together routinely collected administrative data for a 5.3 per cent representative sample of the country’s population (about 270,000 people).

A dataset offering a wealth of information on the Scottish population has been created by the Longitudinal Studies Centre – Scotland. The dataset, known as the Scottish Longitudinal Study (SLS), links together routinely collected administrative data for a 5.3 per cent representative sample of the country’s population (about 270,000 people).

The SLS dataset includes information from the 1991 and 2001 censuses, cancer registry and hospital episodes. It is regarded as an unparalleled resource for analysing a range of socio-economic, demographic and health questions, including those based on reasonably rare events.

The creation of the dataset has been the major goal of the Longitudinal Studies Centre – Scotland (LSCS), which was set up in 2001. “The longitudinal nature of the dataset will allow researchers to explore causality in a way that cross-sectional data collected at a single point in time do not,” the LSCS says. “It will provide insights into the health and social status of the Scottish population and, crucially, how it changes over time.”

The SLS is supported by the Economic and Social Research Council and free, supported access is available for academic researchers. Further details about the study can be found on the LSCS website (www.lscs.ac.uk), including information about how to access the data, and working papers summarising different aspects of the study.

If you would like to be added to the SLS email distribution list, and receive updates on extensions to the data, recent findings, and new working papers, please email lscs@st-andrews.ac.uk