Abstract copyright UK Data Service and data collection copyright owner. 

The English Longitudinal Study of Ageing (see the main study under SN 5050) is a longitudinal household survey for the study of health, economic position, and quality of life among the elderly. The ELSA COVID-19 Study, Waves 1-2, 2020 (SN 8688) is a follow-up substudy based on the sample of the main ELSA study. Within the context of the Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19) outbreak, all participants for the COVID-19 substudy were selected from the existing ELSA sample to measure the socio-economic effects/psychological impact of the lockdown on the 50+ population of England. The ELSA COVID-19 substudy allows a cross-sectional analysis of the dynamics of the lockdown, enabling too the possibility to link the data collected with previous and future waves of ELSA for longitudinal analysis. Subsequent to that, the University of Southern California (USC) Gateway to Global Aging Data team has created the Harmonized ELSA COVID data file, along with a codebook, to facilitate cross-country comparisons across international harmonized COVID studies, including the harmonized Health and Retirement Study (HRS) COVID study and the harmonized Survey of Health, Ageing and Retirement in Europe (SHARE) COVID study. This is a separate data product which is a user-friendly version of a subset of the ELSA COVID-19 substudy. The Harmonized ELSA COVID dataset uses data from the third edition of the ELSA COVID-19 substudy, released in February 2022. It follows the conventions of variable naming and data structure first developed by the RAND Center for the Study of Aging. The harmonized ELSA COVID data file is built using variables from the harmonized ELSA data file (SN 5050) and the ELSA COVID-19 substudy data files (SN 8688). It does not include any data which is not released under UKDS End User Licence access conditions.

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Topic areas include: demographics; mental health; financial security; COVID-19-related health; employment and work; financial situation; volunteering and care; physical health and health behaviours; social connection isolation and technological inclusion; income, pensions and retirement.

No sampling (total universe)

Compilation/Synthesis