APPENDIX
Technical note on SHS question wording
8.1 Prior to April (Quarter 2) 2003, the SHS included a question for the random adult on whether or not they had 'any long-standing limiting illness, health problem or disability', i.e. no distinction was made between illness and disability. From April (Q2) 2003 onwards the response categories to the random adult question allowed for a differentiation to be made between 'disability only', 'long-term illness or health problem only', and 'disability with illness'.
8.2 This change has the following implications for the analyses presented in this report:
- All analyses using random adult data for 2003/04 exclude Q1 2003.
- Comparisons over time focus on adults with long-term conditions as one group. This enables direct comparisons to be made across the years.
- Care should be taken in comparing results in this report to those in other publications, as different approaches to analysis may have been adopted. Of particular relevance is the different approach adopted by Social Focus on Disability (2004), which was based on 2001-2002 SHS data. The analysis of long-term health status of random adults in it was based on data from the household respondent about each household member.
8.3 This affects the analyses related to random adults only; there is no difference to household measures over time.