Consumer behaviour - Economics
Income, property and investment - Economics
ONS Omnibus Survey - Major studies
Accidents and injuries - Health
Social attitudes and behaviour - Society and culture
Childbearing, family planning and abortion - Health
Housing
The Opinions and Lifestyle Survey, formerly known as ONS Opinions Survey or Omnibus, is a regular, multi-purpose survey which was carried out in eight months of the year until April 2005. From this point it has run monthly. It started operating commercially in 1990 and was set up originally to meet the needs of government departments for a survey that used short and simple sets of questions, had greater statistical reliability than private sector omnibus surveys and a properly designed random sample. Now, however, an increasing number of academics are finding it a valuable research tool.
The Opinions and Lifestyle Survey is used for a number of purposes, for example:
- to provide quick answers to questions of immediate interest
- to provide information on topics that do not require a full survey
- to develop and pilot questions for other surveys
- to sift for subgroups that can be followed up in another survey
History
From January 2008 the ONS Omnibus Survey changed its name to the ONS Opinions Survey (OPN) and became part of the Integrated Household Survey (IHS). As a result, certain classificatory variables were altered to harmonise with the rest of the surveys that form the IHS. For further information, see detailed breakdown of the changes contained within the documentation for 2008 studies onwards.
Subsequently, in January 2010, the OPN component was dropped from the IHS due to only one individual per household being interviewed, while the IHS requires questions to be asked of all household members. This process significantly increased the length of the OPN interview and, therefore, OPN reverted back to interviewing one household member, but still contains questions harmonised to the IHS.
From April 2012 the ONS Opinions Survey changed its name to the Opinions and Lifestyle Survey following the merger of the non-EU-SILC questions from the General Lifestyle Survey.
Special Licence Access Opinions and Lifestyle Survey data
With effect from 2008, the decision was made by ONS to make all new and existing Disability Monitoring data (Module 363) and Contraception data (Module 170) issuable only to Approved Researchers under Special Licence access conditions due to the disclosive nature of the modules. See the Opinions and Lifestyle Survey Special Licence Access datasets page.
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Main Topics:
Each month's questionnaire consists of two elements: core questions, covering demographic information, are asked each month together with non-core questions that vary from month to month.
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The non-core questions for this month were:
Company Cars (Module 1a): questions about the number of company cars in the household; total mileage and total business mileage; age of car and value of car when new.
Second Homes (Module 4): ownership of a second home by any member of the household and reasons for having the second home.
Contraception (Module 6): method of birth control used and reasons for choice; changes in methods used; the use of Family Planning Clinics; awareness of emergency methods for use after intercourse has taken place.
Investment Income (Module 7a): ownership of shares and income from shares, bank accounts and building society accounts.
Cot Deaths (Module 37): questions about the recent publicity giving information on preventing cot deaths.
Overseas Transactions (Module 58): financial transactions (receipts or payments) made as a private individual in the past 12 months; value in pound sterling; currency of transaction; reasons for transaction.
Alcohol and Tobacco from EU (Module 64): alcohol and/or tobacco products brought back from European Union Countries during previous two months; quantity bought.
Head of Household Information (Module 70): occupation and supervisory status of head of household.
GP Accidents (Module 78): accidents in previous three months that resulted in seeing a doctor or going to hospital; where accident happened; whether saw a GP or went straight to hospital.
Mortgage Arrears (Module 79): whether behind in mortgage payments; whether has ever had to give up home because of difficulties with paying mortgage.
Leasehold Enfranchisement (Module 86): owners of flats/maisonettes asked whether owned leasehold or freehold; whether bought property under the Right to Buy scheme; if freehold whether owns freehold of whole building; if leasehold who owns the freehold; whether is aware of right to buy freehold and if would be interested in buying the freehold; if interested what steps taken to buy freehold; if not interested in buying freehold what steps taken to buy a longer lease; whether pays charges for services and if so how satisfied with services; whether thinks it would be easy to sell property under present market conditions.
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Please note, the inclusion of publications in this tab is temporary.
Publications and outputs will be searchable using the publications filter in the near future.
By principal investigator(s):
OPCS (1991?) OPCS Omnibus: review of the first six months, London: OPCS.
Resulting from secondary analysis:
Bowling, A. (1994) What things are important in people's lives?: a survey of the public's judgements to inform scales of health-related quality of life, end-of-award report prepared for the ESRC award no. R000221191, St. Bartholomew's Hospital Medical College, Health Needs Assessment Unit, September.
Hall, D. (1996) Organ donation and the idea of the body, University of Liverpool, Department of Sociology.
Bowling, A. et al. (1999) 'Short Form 36 (SF-36) Health Survey questionnaire: which normative data should be used? Comparisons between the norms provided by the Omnibus Survey in Britain, the Health Survey for England and the Oxford Healthy Life Survey', Journal of Public Health Medicine, 21(3), pp.255-270.
Lampard, R. and Peggs, K. (2007) Identity and repartnering after separation, Basingstoke: Palgrave.
The Institute of Alcohol Studies (IAS) has produced a 'Data Dictionary' covering summary information on UK-based survey series (including ONS Omnibus) that include any data on alcohol use. Further information and links to the dictionary documents may be found on the IAS Data Dictionary - Table of Contents web page.
Search for ONS Omnibus Survey in ESDS Government publication search.
