Health

Working together to improve health and social care statistics

Categories: Coronavirus, Health, Office for National Statistics, Office for Statistics Regulation, Population, Research, Wellbeing
Baby visits doctor

The COVID-19 pandemic placed health and social care statistics into the headlines, encompassing a wide range of vital topics such as mortality, vaccine uptake, mental health and other health impacts. Nearly four years on from the first news reports of the ‘coronavirus’, the interest in health data and statistics has continued to grow. Julie Stanborough explains how we are working collaboratively with other data producers to improve health and social care statistics, and how you can have your say.

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Using the power of linked data to understand factors preventing people from working

Categories: Coronavirus, Disability, Economy, Health, Office for National Statistics, Office for Statistics Regulation, ONS, Population, UK Statistics Authority, Wellbeing
Crowds of people walking through a busy street

Nearly 9 million working-age people in the UK were not working or looking for work – that is, economically inactive – from May to July 2023. This figure includes more than 2.5 million people inactive due to long-term sickness, an increase of half-a-million people since before the COVID-19 pandemic. Emma Rourke explains how linked, population-level data can improve our understanding of the interplay between health and work, with the goal of improving the wellbeing of individuals and the economy.

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What is the meaning of life?  Measuring National well-being in the UK

Categories: Data, Economy, Health, Public Policy, Wellbeing
A group of people looking happy, they have their arms around each other and are in a park type setting with sunlight behind them

This week, ONS has published a range of data on what people tell us matters most to them when it comes to living a good and meaningful life.  Here Tim Vizard looks at what we’ve discovered, why it is important and our plans to continue exploring beyond purely economic measures to get a fuller picture of how our society is doing.

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Creating a coherent picture of health in the UK

Categories: Data, Health, Office for National Statistics, ONS Local
Ambulances outside hospital

How do we create an overall picture of health in the UK, when the data produced by each of the four nations can be different? Statistical coherence is about bringing together statistics on the same topic to give a better understanding of the part of the world they describe. In this blog, Becky Tinsley explains how the ONS, the devolved administrations, and health bodies, are working together to improve the comparability of UK health data, allowing us to better join the pieces of the puzzle.

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