Consumer behaviour - Economics
Income, property and investment - Economics
ONS Omnibus Survey - Major studies
Drug abuse, alcohol and smoking - Health
Social attitudes and behaviour - Society and culture
Specific diseases and medical conditions - Health
Travel and transport
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:
Access to services (Module 251): Asked on behalf of the Social Analysis Branch of ONS Social Reporting Division, the first half asks how respondents travel to various services and to work, and the second half asks how easy it is to get to these services.
Genetic modification (Module 248): this module was asked on behalf of the National Centre for Social Research (formerly SCPR) and the questions are being used in a panel study to compare changes of opinion in the panel with the view of a general population sample.
Public confidence in official statistics (Module 197): this module followed on from pilot work begun in the November 1996 survey, and aimed to measure: 1) whether people have heard of ONS or its component parts - the Office of Population Censuses and Surveys, and the Central Statistical Office, and 2) the level of public confidence in official statistics (those produced by ONS).
Consumption of tobacco (Module 210): this module was asked on behalf of Customs and Excise to help them estimate the amount of tobacco consumed as cigarettes.
Drinking (Module 192): this module was asked on behalf of the Department of Health. It is based on the 'Drinking' module run in March 1998 with some new questions added. New questions designed to investigate the social context of drinking; whether they have noticed unit labelling on drinks; and whether medical advice has been sought about drinking.
Child support (Module 256): this module was asked on behalf of the Department for Social Security. Asks questions on the financial support of children whose parents no longer live or have never lived together.
People without bank accounts (Module 254): this module was asked on behalf of the National Institute of Economic and Social Research and is to find out what type of bank account, if any, people have.
Pensions (Module 255): this module was asked on behalf of the Department for Social Security. They are interested in people's attitudes towards pensions and savings. Results will feed into evaluation of pensions reforms including Stakeholder Pensions.
Confidentiality (Module 257): this module was asked on behalf of the Social Survey Division of ONS. It aims to discover how much confidence the respondent has that data collected will remain confidential.
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Dates of fieldwork:
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20 March 2000, 8 April 2000 |
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Country:
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Great Britain
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Spatial units:
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Government Office Regions
Standard Statistical Regions
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Observation units:
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Individuals
Families and households
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Universe:
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National
Adults
Households
Adults, aged 16 or over, living in private households in Great Britain.
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Time dimensions:
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Repeated cross-sectional study
monthly (up to year 2000), eight cycles per year (up to April 2005), monthly thereafter.
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Sampling procedures:
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Multi-stage stratified random sample
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Number of units:
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1693 (obtained)
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Method of data collection:
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Face-to-face interview
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Weighting:
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No information recorded
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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.
