Scottish Surveys Core Questions 2017

Scottish Surveys Core Questions 2017

The Scottish Surveys Core Questions (SSCQ) is an annual Official Statistics publication for Scotland. The SSCQ gathers survey responses from identical indicator questions in the Scottish Crime and Justice Survey, the Scottish Health Survey and the Scottish Household Survey into one output.

The Scottish Surveys Core Questions in 2017 reports on the indicators: self-assessed general health, limiting long-term conditions, smoking, mental wellbeing, unpaid caring, perception of crime in local area and perceptions of the police.

The pooling of Core Questions results in an annual sample of around 20,000 respondents, providing unprecedented precision of estimates at national level. This sample size enables the detailed and reliable analysis of national indicators by protected equalities characteristics such as ethnic group, religion, country of birth, sexual orientation, age, and gender. Further variables are education level, economic activity, tenure, car access and household type. Multi-level analysis is available on request.

SSCQ also enables a more detailed analysis of sub-national geographies than source surveys allow. Annually, SSCQ reports for Local Authorities, Health Boards, Police Divisions and some smaller geographies (see Supplementary Tables).

Multi-year SSCQ (mySSCQ) reports indicators down to electoral ward level. 

This report is the sixth in the SSCQ series and contains information about the change in many of the indicators over the period 2012-2017 at national and sub-national levels.[1]

Findings summary

Findings listed in this section are statistically significant at a 95% level.

Disability: Limiting long-term physical and mental health conditions (Section 2.1)

Adults with a limiting long-term health condition reported:

• Poorer general health;
• Higher levels of smoking;
• Lower mental wellbeing;
• Lower confidence in the ability of the police.

Ethnic group (Section 2.2)

In comparison to “White: Scottish” adults:

• Adults with “White: Other British” and “Asian” ethnicity and “All other ethnic groups” reported lower smoking prevalences.
• “White: Other British”, “White: Polish” and “White: Other” adults reported being less likely to provide unpaid care.
• “White: Polish” adults reported lower confidence in the ability of the police in three domains.

Religion (Section 2.3)

• Those who have “no religion” and who identified as “Church of Scotland”, “Roman Catholic” and “Other Christian” have seen reductions in smoking rates since 2012.

In comparison to adults with no religious belonging:

• “Roman Catholic”s and “Other Christian”s reported higher mental wellbeing.
• Adults reporting belonging to the “Church of Scotland” appear more likely to provide unpaid care.
• Adults reporting belonging to the “Church of Scotland” reported higher confidence in the ablilty of the police, but have seen reduced confidence since 2012.

Sexual orientation (Section 2.4)

Adults identifying as Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual or Other reported:

• Higher levels of smoking;
• A larger prevalence of limiting long-term health conditions;
• Lower mental wellbeing.

Age and Gender (Section 2.5)

• With increasing age, adults were more likely to report having a limiting long-term condition and less likely to report good/very good general health.
• Since 2012, there have been reductions in smoking prevalence in all age groups other than 75+.
• In general, confidence in the ability of the police fell with age. Higher levels of confidence were reported among 16-24 year olds with the lowest levels in the 65-74 age group.
• The proportion of adults providing unpaid care was highest between the ages of 45 and 64, where almost a quarter of people provide unpaid care.

Women were more likely than men to report:

• Having a limiting long-term condition;
• Not smoking;
• Poorer general health;
• Providing unpaid care;

Women were less likely to report crime has stayed the same or reduced in their local area. 

Country of Birth (Section 3.1)

In comparison to adults born in Scotland:

• Adults born in the Rest of the UK and the Rest of the EU were more likely to report good or very good general health;
• Adults born in the Rest of the EU were less likely to report having a limiting long-term health condition;
• Adults born elsewhere, were less likely to provide unpaid care;
• Adults born in the Rest of the UK were more likely to report higher confidence in the ability of the police.

Deprivation (Section 3.2)

Adults in the most deprived 20% of areas reported;

• Higher levels of smoking;
• Lower levels of general health and higher levels of limiting long-term conditions;
• Lower levels of mental wellbeing;
• Being more likely to provide unpaid care.