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Irish Health Survey, 2015 

Study number (SN): 0082-01

CITATION 

ABOUT THE STUDY 

The Irish Health Survey (IHS) was collected under Regulation (EC) No 1338/2008 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 16 December 2008 on Community statistics on public health and health and safety at work1. This survey fulfils the need for public health policies to obtain reliable data on health status, health care usage and health determinants.

The Central Statistics Office wishes to thank the participating households for their co-operation in agreeing to take part in the survey, and for facilitating the collection of the relevant data. 

Questionnaire

The Irish Health Survey was designed in line with the third wave of the European Health Interview Survey (EHIS)2.  The collection of the data under the aforementioned European Regulation implies that harmonised data can be obtained across the European continent.

The Irish Health Survey can be divided into three fundamental components.  These are the European Health Status Module (EHSM), the European Health Care Module (EHCM), and the European Health Determinants Module (EHDM).

The European Health Status Module:

The module on health status is a central element of the survey. It allows measurement of the health status of the population in general, and not only in relation to specific health problems. It covers different aspects and dimensions of health: physical and mental health, chronic and temporary problems and specific conditions. It covers the general impact on the functional status and the limitations in activities of daily living of the respondents.  The first three general questions on self-perceived health, long standing illnesses or health problems, and activity limitations constitute the Minimum European Health Module (MEHM).

The European Health Care Module:

The ECHM module collects data on the use of health care services and the unmet needs for health care. Information on health care consumption is an essential part of the health information system in order to assign necessary resources to the population. This allows analysis of the relationships between health consumption and several determinants such as health status, lifestyles or socio-demographic characteristics as well as the relationships between different types of health care use.

The European Health Determinants Module: 

The general focus of this module is to measure aspects in lifestyles or health-related behaviours. These may have a positive or negative impact on an individual’s health status.

Along with the above data, additional variables collected included were; NUTS3 region, sex, age, nationality, and level of deprivation.

MAIN TOPICS 

• Health

COVERAGE, UNIVERSE, METHODOLOGY 

Population 

The target population of the Irish Health Survey is all individuals aged 15 years and older living in private households in the Irish state.

Observation units

• Individual

Temporal coverage 

From 10/2014 to 10/2015

Time dimension  

Repeated cross-sectional study, every 5 years

Geographical coverage 

Country: Ireland

Region: NUTS 3

Methods of data collection 

• PAPI (Paper and Pencil Interviewing): Self-completion, paper survey form was completed by the respondent and returned by post.

Sampling procedures 

The sample was derived for Irish Health Survey. It is a multi-stage cluster sample resulting in all households in Ireland having an equal probability of selection. The sample is stratified using administrative county and the Pobal HP (Haase and Pratschke) Deprivation Index (quintile).

A two-stage sample design is used. Firstly, 1,200 blocks are selected using Probability Proportional to Size (PPS) sampling. All occupied households on Census night 2012 within each block were eligible for selection in the Social Statistics Sample.

Secondly, households within blocks were selected using simple random sampling (SRS) without replacement for inclusion in the survey sample. This ensures each household in the sample frame has an equal probability of selection.

Weighting 

The IHS grossing procedure aligns the distribution of persons covered in the sample with independently determined population estimates at the level of sex, five-year age group and region.

To provide national population results, the survey results were weighted to represent the entire population (15+). The survey results were weighted to agree with population estimates broken down by age group, sex, ISCED11 and region.

Household weights were calculated for all households in the initial sample. The design weights are computed as the inverse of the selection probability of the unit. The purpose of design weights is to eliminate the bias induced by unequal selection probabilities.

These design weights were then adjusted for non-response. This eliminated the bias introduced by discrepancies caused by non-response, particularly critical when the non-responding households are different from the responding ones in respect to some survey variables as this may create substantial bias in the estimates. Design weights are adjusted for non-response by dividing the design weights of each responding unit in the final/achieved sample by the (weighted) response probability of the corresponding group or strata.

To obtain the final household weights for the results, after the previous steps were carried out, the distribution of households by deprivation, NUTS3 region, sex and age was calibrated to the population of households. The CALMAR2-macro, developed by INSEE, was used for this purpose. 

DATA AND DOCUMENTATION: FILES’ DESCRIPTION  

Data (available through ISSDA application process) 

Changes in version 2 of dataset - 

Based on a more rigorous approach to Statistical Disclosure Control:

• Dropped 3 variables
• Globally recoded 29 variables
• locally suppressed approx. 150 values across BMI, Height, Age, Disability and Deprivation Index where there were potentially disclosive combinations of values across these key variables
• 10% of the observations in the dataset dropped at random

Documentation (available for download) 

LINKS 

https://www.cso.ie/en/releasesandpublications/ep/p-ihs/irishhealthsurvey2015/

ACCESS INFORMATION 

Accessing the data 

To access the data, please complete the ISSDA Data Request Form for Research Purposes - Pseudonymised Datasetssign it, and send it to ISSDA by email.

For teaching purposes, please complete the ISSDA Data Request Form for Teaching Purposes - Pseudonymised Datasets, and follow the procedures, as above. Teaching requests are approved on a once-off module/workshop basis. Subsequent occurrences of the module/workshop require a new teaching request form.

Data will be disseminated on receipt of a fully completed, signed form. Incomplete or unsigned forms will be returned to the data requester for completion.

Copyright 

The copyright for the Irish Health Survey 2015 is the property of the Central Statistics Office.

Acknowledgements 

Any work based in whole or part on resources provided by the ISSDA, should  acknowledge: “Irish Health Survey, 2015" and also ISSDA, in the following way: “Accessed via the Irish Social Science Data Archive - www.ucd.ie/issda”.

Citation requirement 

The data and its creators shall be cited in all publications and presentations for which the data have been used. The bibliographic citation may be in the form suggested by the archive or in the form required by the publication.

Bibliographical citation 

Central Statistics Office (CSO).  (2024). Irish Health Survey, 2015 [dataset]. Version 2. Dublin: Irish Social Science Data Archive SN: 0082-01 https://www.ucd.ie/issda/data/irishhealthsurvey/irishhealthsurvey2015/

Notification 

The user shall notify the Irish Social Science Data Archive of all publications where she or he has used the data.