Health

Listening to young people with special educational needs and disabilities (SEND)

Colourful artwork drawn by a child

Today (19 June 2023) is the start of Learning Disability Week. This annual event, organised by Mencap, aims to educate, spread awareness, and increase understanding of learning disabilities. It is all about making sure the world hears what life is like if you have a learning disability. Here Amber Jordan and Emma Jones from the ONS’s Centre for Equalities and Inclusion explain some of the work the ONS has been doing, looking at the educational experiences of young people with special educational needs and disabilities (SEND).

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The Health Index 2021 – Taking a deep dive into the nation’s health

What are the trends in health where you live? Are factors such as mental health and economic and working conditions improving? And what is the national picture telling us about health? The ONS’ Health Index for England shines a light on these questions. Greg Ceely discusses the value of this rich dataset and looks ahead to its next publication.   

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Disability: When the numbers alone are simply not enough 

The most recent estimates suggest one in five people in the UK are disabled. But to really understand the nature of those disabilities and the needs of people reporting them we need to do a lot more work.   

In this episode of Statistically Speaking we look at what’s being done to gain insight into the lives of disabled children and adults and provide high quality qualitative data that reflects the day-to-day lives of all people in our society.  

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New ways to access Census 2021 data

Crowds of people walking through a busy street

At the Office for National Statistics, we want to give you the power to find and compare all the combinations of data you want from Census 2021. We have now released billions of statistics from the information you gave us in response to the Census. Here Jen Woolford explains how ‘Create a custom dataset’ is a unique innovation for official statistics and how it is just one of the products coming this year to help you find the data you want. 

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Assessing the benefits and risks of vaccinations in young people 

Stock vaccine image

Since the rollout of the COVID-19 vaccination campaign, it has been vital to monitor the impact of vaccinations on mortality. As with any vaccine, this includes assessing the protection the vaccine offers against infection and severe outcomes, but also measuring the potential side effects and adverse events. The balance of risk and benefit becomes particularly important in groups where the likelihood of severe outcomes from COVID-19 is lower, as in younger people. Here, Charlotte Bermingham discusses new ONS analysis on vaccine safety in the context of young people.  

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