Scottish Health Survey: access our data

Data availability

You can access our data from the sources below:

• reports and publications page
• open data platform: statistics.gov.scot
• UK Data Service. In addition to single year datasets, datasets combining two or more years of data are available. This is in order to provide a larger sample for more detailed analysis (including some geographical breakdowns) where the sample for a single year would not be large enough. The combined datasets include a combined weight which will differ slightly from the weights for the individual years. As such, the combined datasets should not be used to produce results for individual years. Health board level analysis is generally produced using four years’ worth of data combined in order to ensure a sufficiently large sample for each area. Health Boards with larger samples will be able to analyse their own data more frequently. The following link provides direct access to the Scottish Health Survey data on the UK Data Service: UK Data Service › Series

Each Scottish Health Survey dataset is accompanied with relevant survey documentation including questionnaires (CAPI and self-completion) and showcards, interviewer and nurse instructions (such as measurement protocols), coding lists (e.g. illnesses) and variable lists (including derived variables). These are also available on the UK Data Service. Data users should ensure they read the relevant documentation prior to analysing any survey data. 

Special datasets

Where the standard anonymised datasets do not contain all of the information you require for a specific project, a request to be provided with a special dataset can be submitted. 

Please note that access to such sensitive and confidential data is safeguarded by regulating access for non-commercial purposes only, and can only be used by the Scottish Government or other research agencies acting on behalf of, or with the agreement of, the Scottish government or associated bodies.

To apply for a special dataset, please follow the procedures detailed on the request our data page. 

Follow-up research

Respondents to the Scottish Health Survey are asked if they would be willing to be re-contacted for follow-up research. If you would like to apply to contact Scottish Health Survey participants for the purpose of follow-up research, please follow the procedures detailed on the the request our data page. 

Ad-hoc requests

We offer an ad-hoc request service for analysis that is not available in our reports or published data tables. If you wish to submit an ad-hoc request please contact us via scottishhealthsurvey@gov.scot. Response times do vary depending on the complexity of the request and the resources available at the time.