Description
Understanding Society is a partner study of UK Longitudinal Linkage Collaboration (UK LLC) – the national Trusted Research Environment for record linkage in UK longitudinal studies.
UK LLC now has agreements with the Department of Work and Pensions (DWP) and HM Revenue & Customs to link and host the employment, earnings and benefits records of participants of partner Longitudinal Population Studies’ (LPS). This includes Understanding Society who will be one of a small number of initial studies linked to these records.
UK LLC are now developing a strategy for processing these data, documenting them and provisioning them to users via the UK LLC trusted research environment.
This workshop is designed to capture user requirements for data derivations, formats and documentation so we can co-develop an effective “research ready” data resource.
Specifically, participants will develop their understanding of:
• The UK LLC trusted research environment (e.g., the breadth of data linked and how these data are stored, used and accessed)
• Understanding Society as a partner study in UK LLC (e.g., sample composition and data availability)
• The DWP and HMRC data which UK LLC will link and provision
• The RAPID dataset under development by DWP/HMRC which may transform the data available in the future
Participants will then contribute to co-developing:
• A list of priority data derivations which would have broad research utility
• A list of FAQs about the data, their quality and utility, which will be used by UK LLC to work with DWP/HMRC to collate documentation resources
• A business case for future enhancements to the linked resource through identifying gaps and scientific needs
Pre-workshop information
In advance of the workshop, participants are asked to think of research scenarios in which they will want to use Understanding Society data (or longitudinal study data in general) linked with DWP and HMRC records (including wider linkages such as to NHS records).
Examples might include:
• I want to use household earnings as a co-variate to test for confounding
• I want to use information on disability benefits to help understand the relationship between independent living with chronic illness and patterns of healthcare utilisation
Workshop format
This 2-hour workshop will cover the following topics through a range of interactive activities, presentations and group discussions:
1. Introduction to UK LLC: a presentation giving a brief outline of the UK LLC will be given (10min presentation) with additional content describing Understanding Society as a UK LLC partner (5min additional content, on e.g., the USoc deposited data and sample), followed by ~10min Q&A.
2. A “deep dive” talk outlining the DWP (CIS/BIDS), HMRC (PAYE, SA) datasets and the emerging RAPID dataset providing derived outcomes from these (and wider) source datasets. 35min combining presentations with audience Q&A throughout.
3. Participants will work together (40min) to map out the data they need and then reporting back to the room (a workshop facilitator will scribe and report back), with a focus on identifying:
 Derived data commonly needed
 What documentation is needed to make these data research ready (e.g., linkage quality assessments, insights on missing populations from the data)
4. Whole group discussion (~20min) on building the business case for future data needs, i.e., what is needed to support the linked DWP/HMRC data to unlock wider scientific opportunities?