Impact of Longitudinal Studies on National Records and Policy Making

Allan Findlay, University of St Andrews Co-Director ESRC s CALLS Hub http://calls.ac.uk/ LONGITUDINAL STUDIES AND IMPACT Acknowledgements: Chris Dibben, Fiona Cox and Sharon Leahy

REF Definition of Impact Impact was defined as 'an effect on, change or benefit to the economy, society, culture, public policy or services, health, the environment or quality of life, beyond academia'. (REF 2014)

St Andrews University submitted three impact case studies from research by Human Geographers Data Zones Indices of Multiple Deprivation The SLS as a blueprint

REF2014: Underpinning Research Originality of the research The nature of the research Overcoming legal and ethical challenges Data development Linkage methods Researching the utility outside the academy Research quality. Publications such as Dibben et al (2009) The Scottish Longitudinal Study International Journal of Epidemiology, 38, 385-92

The Nature of the Impact of the Scottish Longitudinal Study 1. Changed the National Records of Scotland statistical infrastructure 2. Impacted local and national policy making 3. Training non-academic researchers 4. Provided a helpful model relevant to the UK s administrative data infrastructure

Impact 1: Changed the National Records of Scotland statistical infrastructure a) Saved on costly repeat interviews face to face b) Became part of regular reporting of new statistical series c) Used to answer questions about occupational coding on death certificates d) Northern Ireland Longitudinal Study affirmed the value of the SLS in its design

Impact 2: Local and national policy making policy making Housing tenure change -> Clyde Valley Strategic Development Plan McCollum, D 2011 The Demographic Evidence and Socio-economic Profile of Return Migrants and Long-term In-migrants to Scotland. TSG Social Research Report

Impact 3: Training Impact 3: Training non-academic researchers 14 SLS training events 125 non-academics trained (a high proportion of Scotland s quantitative research pool in government and the charity sector) 9 new non-academic research projects using the SLS (employment, health inequalities, migration)

Impact 4: Provided a helpful model relevant to the UK s administrative data administrative data infrastructure infrastructure (anonymised quotes) (anonymised quotes) The SLS has been of absolute fundamental importance to the development of the new National Data Sharing and Linking Service Advancing Administrative Data Linkage It is fair to say that the SLS was a vital element in Scotland being able to make practical progress in this are quickly Best practice model ADRC could build on best practice from the experience of the SLS and having a data linkage process similar to that used by the SLS where personal identifying information is not held by the ADRC

Conclusion There is great value, not only in producing census-linked longitudinal studies and supporting users, but also in researching their impact so often taken for granted features of the census-linked LSs lie at the very core of their impact outside the academy. Impacts have been shown to relate not only to the empirical value of longitudinal data to policy decision makers, but in relation to developing statistical infrastructure The main impact is still to come!!!!