Asking about Sex in General Health Surveys: Comparing the Methods and Findings of the 2010 Health Survey for England with Those of the Third National Survey of Sexual Attitudes and Lifestyles

Philip Prah, Anne M Johnson, Anthony Nardone, Soazig Clifton, Jennifer S Mindell, Andrew J Copas, Chloe Robinson, Rachel Craig, Sarah C Woodhall, Wendy Macdowall, Elizabeth Fuller, Bob Erens, Pam Sonnenberg, Kaye Wellings and Catherine H Mercer

PLOS ONE, 2015, vol. 10, issue 8, 1-18

Abstract: Objectives: Including questions about sexual health in the annual Health Survey for England (HSE) provides opportunities for regular measurement of key public health indicators, augmenting Britain's decennial National Survey of Sexual Attitudes and Lifestyles (Natsal). However, contextual and methodological differences may limit comparability of the findings. We examine the extent of these differences between HSE 2010 and Natsal-3 and investigate their impact on parameter estimates. Methods: Complex survey analyses of data from men and women in the 2010 HSE (n = 2,782 men and 3,588 women) and Natsal-3 undertaken 2010–2012 (n = 4,882 men and 6,869 women) aged 16-69y and resident in England, both using probability sampling, compared their characteristics, the amount of non-response to, and estimates from, sexual health questions. Both surveys used self-completion for the sexual behaviour questions but this was via computer-assisted self-interview (CASI) in Natsal-3 and a pen-and-paper questionnaire in HSE 2010. Results: The surveys achieved similar response rates, both around 60%, and demographic profiles largely consistent with the census, although HSE participants tended to be less educated, and reported worse general health, than Natsal-3 participants. Item non-response to the sexual health questions was typically higher in HSE 2010 (range: 9–18%) relative to Natsal-3 (all

Date: 2015
References: View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

Downloads: (external link)
https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0135203 (text/html)
https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article/file?id= ... 35203&type=printable (application/pdf)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:plo:pone00:0135203

DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0135203

Access Statistics for this article

More articles in PLOS ONE from Public Library of Science
Bibliographic data for series maintained by plosone ().