This is the fifth report in this series carried out by the Joint Health Surveys Unit of Social and Community Planning Research and the Department of Epidemiology and Public Health at University College London. The first volume gives the Findings and the second gives the Survey Methodology and Documentation. For the first time the sample included children. A particular focus is asthma and respiratory problems. Other areas given detailed treatment are accidents and disability. The survey also reports on general health, smoking and drinking and monitors the Health of the Nation targets on blood pressure and obesity.
To give some feel for the type of material covered I will go into more detail on some of the “findings” chapters. The one on respiratory symptoms and atopic conditions looks at symptoms, severity, medication, Health Service use, effects of class, region and smoking status, and some specific conditions such as hay fever. The section on disability looks at prevalence and type of disability in adults and children. The chapter on general health looks at incidences of acute and chronic illness, psychosocial well‐being and prescribed medicine use. About half the sample population are on prescribed medicines, which appears worrying. But an examination of the tables shows that it is mainly the elderly on medicines that prevent something worse. The second volume has chapters on blood analysis and on survey methodology and response, plus a full set of fieldwork documents, measurement protocols with a coding frame for classifying medicines, as well as a regional map and a glossary. The details in the report cannot be fully described in a review. A brief look at the fieldwork documents shows that there are more data collected than published. These data and anonymized data files are available from the Data Archive at the University of Essex.
The two volumes are paper bound and come with a slip case. Although the second volume is twice as long as the first it is only half as thick, because, sensibly, the findings are printed on high quality thick paper. There is a core market for this report consisting of, most obviously, the Department of Health, who commissioned the work, and various NHS Trusts. There is also information of value to the pharmaceutical and health care industries. In addition to the regular standing order market, each issue will, because of the special focuses, attract those concerned with particular diseases. The inclusion of information on disability will widen its value to those providing personal social services. Major public reference libraries might also find it of use to their customers.
