Here is an interesting use of data from a national survey. Must admit I hadn't heard of the British Household Panel Survey before, but the 'Panel' in the title indicates that it is longitudinal - the sample people are interviewed in successive years. Hence behaviour change - in this case smoking quitting and smoking initiation - can be studied.
The questions on social capital are pretty basic - one question on whether you can trust other people, and one on membership of groups and clubs - but that is typical for items in omnibus surveys. Nevertheless the results are interesting.
Not quite sure why it took two authors in Sweden to analyse this British dataset! but it reminds us that often with these large datasets contain a wealth of knowledge waiting to be revealed by creative ideas for analysis.
The BHPS is now part of the new 'Understanding Society' survey, which also incorporates health measurements such as blood pressure, BMI, SF12 and much else.
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