Linking health and education data for research to improve outcomes for children in England

Education and health are deeply connected in childhood and adolescence. These links are particularly important for vulnerable or disadvantaged children, for whom challenges in one domain often occur alongside or cause difficulties in the other. Whilst Scotland, Wales and the Nordic countries are increasingly using linked data to improve health and education for children with chronic conditions, use in England is patchy. This project will bridge this gap in knowledge by linking education and health data for all children in England. Our aim is to create a research-ready dataset, the All Years Dataset, which can be used in future research to improve outcomes for children in England.

Firstly, we will carry out strategic research based on an existing linked education-health dataset of a subset of 2 million children. Evidence on the accuracy of linkage between health and education data will be used to improve the All Years Dataset. We will produce research to show how the data can be used to inform policy and produce a manual, or metadata, to help future researchers to understand and use the dataset. We will involve the public in developing priorities for future studies using the All Years Dataset. The All Years Dataset will link children across two datasets. The National Pupil Database, which contains education records for all children in England from 2002 onwards and Hospital Episode Statistics, which contains information on hospital care from 1997 onwards. The linked dataset will be anonymised, meaning that it does not contain any personal information that could directly identify someone. The data will be analysed in secure environments, hosted by the Office of National Statistics and by NHS Digital. Access to these environments will be strictly controlled. No record level data will be able to be taken out of these environments and summary data will be checked before being released. The project will facilitate future research across a range of health and social science disciplines and will support research to improve policymaking for children's health, education and wellbeing.

Education and health are deeply connected in childhood and adolescence. These links are particularly important for vulnerable or disadvantaged children, for whom challenges in one domain often occur alongside or cause difficulties in the other. For example, children with chronic health conditions tend to be heavy users of both hospital and educational support services and have high rates of school absence and poor school performance.

The creation of a large linked health-education dataset will enable researchers and government analysts to delve into these complex issues and produce reliable and policy-relevant research. Two exemplar studies will be conducted as part of our strategic research to demonstrate the dataset's value for policy in two specific areas: predicting academic performance based on measures of early social disadvantage and health, and evaluating school absences and performance among children with chronic health conditions.