General - Employment and labour
ONS Omnibus Survey - Major studies
Drug abuse, alcohol and smoking - Health
Social attitudes and behaviour - Society and culture
General - Health
Specific diseases and medical conditions - Health
Elderly - Social stratification and groupings
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:
Tobacco consumption (Module 210): this module was asked on behalf of HM Revenue and Customs to help estimate the amount of tobacco consumed as cigarettes. Due to the potentially sensitive nature of the data within this module, cases for respondents aged under 18 have been removed.
Disability monitoring (Module 363): this module was asked on behalf of the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) which is interested in information on disability and includes two questions that ask about awareness of the Disability Discrimination Act. The module aims to identify the scale of problems those with long-term illnesses or disabilities have accessing goods, facilities and services. This version of the data does not contain variables M363_3M, M363_6AM, M363_6bM, M363_7M, M363_26, M363_27, M363_28, and M363_29.
Later life (Module MCE): this module was asked by DWP on behalf of a number of other government departments which are interested in what people think of the support available to help older people to continue to live independently in later life.
Later life (Module MCEc): this module was asked by DWP on behalf of a number of other government departments which are interested in what people think of the support available to help older people to continue to live independently in later life, the target group being respondents aged 50 plus.
Health and safety (Module MCQ): this module was asked on behalf of the Health and Safety Executive and questions cover aspects of health and safety in the main workplace, health and safety information received and provision of occupational health support.
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Dates of fieldwork:
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April 2010 |
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Country:
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Great Britain
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Spatial units:
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Government Office 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, 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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1,070 (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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Weighting used. See documentation for details.
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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.
