Sub-series details: CRDA/24/DS/1993

This dataset was transferred from the Department of Health on 2 CD-ROMs which were received by NDAD on 1 October 1999.

This dataset includes public health data covering the years 1992-1994. Further information about the Public Health Common data set is provided in the Series Catalogue and Dataset Documentation Catalogues. The sub-series consists of 5 datasets comprising a total of 424 tables, which contain various indicators for health regions in England and Wales. Data is arranged by administrative areas, namely District Health Authorities (DHAs), Family Health Service Authorities (FHSAs) and National Health Service (NHS) regions.

A supplement to the Public Health Common Data Set, presenting a range of summary indicators derived from the 1991 Census, is available. Previous releases of the Common Data Set included indicators A3 (underprivileged area score) and A4 (ethnic composition), based on the 1981 Census. With the increasing availability of 1991 Census products, the relevance of reproducing these 1981 figures has diminished and they have been suspended from the 1993 data set. The 1991 Census supplement is largely based on data from Census Local Base Statistics (LBS) for areas such as District Health Authorities, Local Authorities and Electoral Wards. Slightly less detailed figures, known as Small Area Statistics (SAS), are also available for these areas and for Enumeration Districts. Supply of these statistics was completed in 1993 and full sets of LBS and SAS tables have been disseminated throughout the NHS (see Appendix 1 for Regional contact points). See CRDA/24/DD/1/4/3, in the Dataset Documentation Catalogue for more information.

A detailed description of all the indicators can be seen in the data definitions and user guide in the Dataset Documentation Catalogue see CRDA/24/DD/1/4/1-6.

The data files for Mortality (Volume 1) and Demography, fertility, morbidiy, and determinants of health (Volume 2) were stored in just one directory as transferred by the Department. All the other volumes were stored in one directory each. NDAD have decided to maintain this system of arrangement for the data.

The tables in CRDA/24/DS/1993 were transferred to NDAD in the form of Symphony (WR1) spreadsheets, with the file names having meaningful prefixes to reflect the type of data. See CRDA/24/DD/1/4/1-6 for a more detailed explanation of the prefixes. These files were opened in Microsoft Excel 97 (under Windows 95/98). Visual Basic Macros were written to process them so that the headings, subheadings, other metadata, and blank columns or rows between the data were removed and the format of the cells set to Microsoft Excel General format before saving the data in CSV (Comma separated variable) format. In a number of the original files (within CRDA/24/DS/1993/3 and CRDA/24/DS/1993/6), the data for each area is split over two lines. A Visual Basic module was written to move the figures so that there is one line per area.

Some cells in the original spreadsheets contain real numbers but they are formatted to display as integers and others which have many figures after the decimal point are displayed with just 2 decimal places. In order to preserve the actual data, this formatting has been removed. However, it must be assumed that original users of the spreadsheets would have seen the data as it had been originally formatted. Although some files contain fields that have many decimal places, users are advised that NDAD recommends that all data in the PHCDS is not quoted at more than two decimal places. This is because fields are not formatted with more than two decimal places in the original spreadsheet files. NDAD assumes that this is because the data creators considered the data to be accurate to, at most, two decimal places. The field formats set by NDAD (DOUBLE or INTEGER) have been specified according to the data the cells contain, rather than how they are displayed within the original spreadsheet.

The PHCDS in its original format does not use specific field names as such: generally, spreadsheet packages do not require data to be held within named fields. (The indicators within PHCDS do have original names which have been preserved but these equate to the table name within NDAD). To identify fields within a table, the first field is named either D_CODE (if the data relates to DHAs) or F_CODE (if it relates to FHSAs) and the second AREA (for the name of the area). The rest of the fields have been named sequentially, starting with the third field as F3, the fourth as F4 etc. These are not from the original data files but have been allocated by NDAD during the data conversion process. The column headings in the spreadsheet, supplemented at times by information from the 'Data definition and user guide', form the basis of the field descriptions.

No access conditions apply

The language of the materials is English.

Public Health Common data set data definitions and user guide for computer files relating to the dataset have been transferred to NDAD and can be consulted via the Dataset Documentation Catalogue.

The data has been divided into six datasets by topic. For access to these datasets, see Links to dataset catalogues.

The data is available for District Health Authorities (DHAs), Family Health Service Authorities (FHSAs), NHS Regions and nationally for England and Wales. However this does not apply to all tables; for instance CRDA/24/DS/1993/1/1/11 (hna5b6) and CRDA/24/DS/1993/1/1/14 (hna10) (as a result of the figures in these tables only being provided at the regional level, the data in these two tables is identical to CRDA/24/DS/1993/1/1/35 (fhna5b6) and CRDA/24/DS/1993/1/1/38 (fhna10) respectively).

In CRDA/24/DS/1993/1, the data in the tables covering indicators A8 and A9 data are only available to regional level and the regional data relates to the Standard Regions used by OPCS for statistical purposes. These Standard Regions (based on County boundaries which are not in general co-terminous with Health Authority areas; see the Documentation Catalogue, reference CRDA/24/DD/1/4/2) have not been encoded at all in the tables and therefore the 4 tables (CRDA/24/DS/1993/1/1/12-13 (hna8 and hna9), CRDA/24/DS/1993/1/1/37-38 (fhna8 and fhna9)) have not been included in the relationships set up by NDAD between the tables (to allow users to link data in similar tables within a dataset via the code for the area). Because figures at the DHA/FHSA level are not provided in these tables, the data in hna8 is identical to fhna8 and similarly for hna9/fhna9.

Details of the sources which were used to produce the Public Health Common data files and how the data was checked by OPCS are given in the Series Catalogue.

No discrepancies were noted in the original spreadsheet files as compared to the expected contents as described in the User Guide for the 1993 PHCDS, see the Dataset Documentation Catalogue, references CRDA/24/DD/1/4/1-6 . However, during processing/checking of the data, the following anomalies were noticed:

• In table CRDA/24/DS/1993/4/11 (rhnb3), the code for Leeds is missing. This affects the data displayed for this record when linking tables (in particular because it means that there are two records in this table with no code - the other being, as is standard, 'ENGLAND AND WALES').
• In table CRDA/24/DS/1993/4/66 (rhmoe3), (click on thumbnails for larger image - the first displays a standard page, the second the erroneous formulae) the figures for DHAs in the columns for the 95% Confidence Interval RateLL and Rate UL for Females and Persons (fields F9, F10, F13 and F14) are incorrect. This is because the cells contain formulae which involve a column which is blank; so for example the formula in the cell for 95% CI Rate LL (field F9) is "=IF(+RC[-1]= 50) is RC[-2]. The same figure results from the formula ("=IF(+RC[-2]

Spot checks were carried out to compare the transformed data against the data in the original Symphony files. These included comparing the values of specific fields and checking that the totals of numeric fields were the same. In addition, each table was checked to ensure that the overall number of records and fields remained the same. No discrepancies were detected between the original and transformed data. The only differences found resulted from rounding and/or floating point representation, particularly for example where the original numbers had 12 figures after the decimal point. The transformed data is restricted to the level of accuracy provided by the general format in Excel (generally 8 figures after the decimal point).

Dataset catalogues provide more detailed information about individual datasets, and are currently available for the following dataset(s):