Professor Vanessa Burholt and Research Assistant Paul Nash, based in Swansea University’s Centre for Innovative Ageing in the College of Human and Health Sciences, have recently had their research paper investigating the data used to compile the Welsh Health Survey published in the Journal of Public Health.
The research into how the survey is compiled has revealed that the data which is used is not a true representation of the health of populations in Wales.
Professor Burholt explains: “Currently in the UK the normative data that is used to establish the healthiness, or otherwise, of samples is commonly derived from one of four sources; The ONS omnibus survey of Britain (1992), the Health Survey of England, the Oxford Healthy Life Survey General Household Survey 1992, and a survey conducted in Sheffield.”
The calculations used in the Welsh Health Survey to construct the SF-36 health measure, are taken from US populations (age and cultural specific norms). These are used to gauge the effectiveness of clinical and social interventions, and to assess the health related quality of life of populations in Wales.
In the last decade forty articles in the British Medical Journal have used SF-36 as an outcome measure, and of these papers, 23% have potentially used inappropriate norms for calculating SF-36 scores as they have relied on non-Welsh population statistics and lack data on the older population.
The research undertaken by Professor Burholt and Mr Nash involved secondary data analysis, using raw data from the 2007 Welsh Health Survey to provide normative data for Wales, for the Wales regions (South East, Mid and West and North) and for different age groups, from 16 years to over 85 years in five year bands.
Mr Nash concludes: “The research has provided information that can be used to give a more accurate representation of clinical effectiveness of interventions, and the health related quality of life of sub-populations, including older people, in different regions of Wales. It has also gone some way to provide more accurate normative information for any further studies in this area.”
The full article can be viewed on line: http://jpubhealth.oxfordjournals.org/content/early/2011/02/08/pubmed.fdr006.full.
Article reference: Burholt V and Nash P. Short Form 36 (SF-36) Health Survey Questionnaire: normative data for Wales. J Public Health (2011).
For more information on the Centre for Innovative Ageing visit http://www.swansea.ac.uk/humanandhealthsciences/Departments/CentreforInnovativeAgeing/.
For more information on the College of Health and Human Sciences visit http://www.swansea.ac.uk/humanandhealthsciences/.
