The MRC Unit for Lifelong Health and Ageing (LHA) and the UCL Centre for Longitudinal Studies (CLS) carried out a nationwide online survey in May 2020 to examine the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on the participants of five national longitudinal cohort studies and the tri-ethnic Southall and Brent Revisited cohorts.
Wave 1
The COVID-19 Wave 1 Survey was conducted initially by web, and only those for whom an email address was held were invited to take part. The decision to issue the survey initially only via the web was taken because the LHA and CLS teams were unable to send postal mailings due to social distancing restrictions on business operations at the time the survey was conducted. However, as the lockdown progressed these restrictions eased, and it was possible to send out postal questionnaires. The postal questionnaire was sent to all active UK based study members who did not receive a web-based survey or who requested a paper version of the questionnaire.
Online: May - June 2020
Postal: June - July 2020
Wave 2
The COVID-19 Wave 2 Survey was conducted initially by web, and all active study members were invited to take part by a letter. UK active study members who did not complete the online questionnaire were then sent a postal questionnaire.
Online: Sept - Oct 2020
Postal: Nov - Dec 2020
Wave 3
The COVID-19 Wave 2 Survey was conducted initially by web and we only sent to study members who had completed Wave 1 or Wave 2 online. A postal questionnaire was later sent to all active UK based study members.
Online: Feb-March 2021
Postal: May - July 2021
Serology
In March 2021, UK based study members who had taken part in any of the three waves of the COVID-19 survey were asked to provide a finger-prick blood sample to be analysed for COVID-19 antibodies. Those who agreed were sent a blood sample collection kit and asked to post back the sample to a laboratory for analysis.
Responding Population All eligible study members were contacted: 2271 study members gave information, of which 1573 study members completed all 3 waves, 449 completed 2 waves and 249 completed one wave
| - | Wave 1 | Wave 2 | Wave 3 |
|---|---|---|---|
| Provided information | 1876 | 2116 | 1913 |
| Cumulative total of deaths | 1225 | 1246 | 1272 |
| Cumulative permanent refusals (withdrawn from the study) | 637 | 638 | 638 |
| Failure to contact | 855 | 852 | 845 |
The aim of the survey was to capture the health, social and economic consequences of the COVID-19 outbreak. It focussed on aspects of people’s lives that needed to be captured immediately In Spring 2020, in order for the impact of the pandemic to be assessed and where possible, measures were chosen to maximise the use of the longitudinal measures already previously collected within the studies.
One survey was designed for all five cohorts, with the majority of questions being asked of all. However, a number of scales or questions were asked of specific cohorts only, primarily to enable longitudinal continuity with questions which had been included previously in major sweeps of each study. A small number of NSHD questions were added to the NSHD questionnaire.
It is estimated that the questionnaire took 25 minutes to complete on average.
Please note that this web questionnaire was designed for participants drawn from across the age spectrum of all the cohorts.
A summary of the content is provided below.
Time use on typical weekday since outbreak: numeric hours (rounded to nearest hour):
Pre-COVID19: (own & partner)
Behaviours pre-COVID 19 & current:
Open question: the main ways the Coronavirus outbreak has affected your life and/or your loved ones so far, and what you think the effects might be in the future.