Linnaeus Database

Summary

Advantages of the Linnaeus Database Longitudinal analyses of the interrelations between health and socio-economic conditions Cognition, health and life style data in Betula and VIPHealth outcome in the Patient and Death Cause Registers. Rich socio-economic information in Statistics Sweden data. Create data of neighbourhoods and networks. Combination of individual, network, neighbourhood variables, data on mobility, (residential, interregional, work places, separations etc). Register data covers a longer period and has a higher time resolution. Register data include the whole population. Drop out analysis. Data quality control. Due to the coverage and rich information, the Linnaeus database allow for a variety of longitudinal studies on the relations between for instance socio-economic conditions, health, life-style, cognition, family networks, migration and working conditions in ageing cohorts. Due to the coverage and rich information, the Linnaeus Database allows for a variety of longitudinal studies on the relations between, for instance, socioeconomic conditions, health, lifestyle, cognition, family networks, migration and working conditions in ageing cohorts. Conclusions: By joining various datasets developed in different disciplinary traditions new possibilities for interdisciplinary research on ageing emerge.

Type of data

Data Source
Registry + Survey

Type of Study
Survey same

Data gathering method
Registries
Other: various other methods

Access to data

Conditions of access
On site access only, data available only for scientific community and only for researchers collaborating with scholars in the defined research programme.

Type of available data (e.g. anonymised microdata, aggregated tables, etc.)
anonymised microdata

Formats available
Available in the form of Excel, SAS, SPSS, STATA, Text.

Coverage

Coverage Years of collection, reference years, and sample sizes
Varies for different data from the total population to a sample of 4,500

First year of collection
Census data from 1960, registry data from 1986, survey data from late 1980s

Stratification if applicable
Basic datasets from county of Västerbotten

Base used for sampling

Geographical coverage and breakdowns
Total population (most data), County of Västerbotten (life style data, health ), Municipality of Umeå (cognitive data)

Age range
Varies

Statistical representativeness
Population representative

Coverage of main and cross-cutting topics
The Linnaeus Database is a unique research resource. It links information from four existing databases, and enables researchers to see new connections between health, lifestyle and ageing. To allow for interdisciplinary research on the relations between socio-economic conditions and health in the ageing population, a new anonymized longitudinal database – the Linnaeus Database – has been developed at the Centre for Population Studies at Umeå University. Using the Swedish personal numbers the researchers have, in collaboration with Statistics Sweden and the National Board for Health and Welfare, linked individual records from Swedish register data on death causes, hospitalization and various socio-economic conditions with two databases – Betula and VIP (Västerbottens Intervention Programme) – previously developed by the researchers at Umeå University. Whereas Betula includes rich information about e.g. cognitive functions, VIP contains information about e.g. lifestyle and health indicators. Betula Is a research project and a database at the Department of Psychology at Umeå University. Since the 80s, the Betula project has examined the cognitive functions of 4,200 randomly chosen participants living in Umeå. Among other things, the participants do memory tests and answer questions about their health and family situation. Since these participants are tested every five years, the project can follow development of memory and health over time. One of the purposes is to detect early signs of dementia. VIP The Västerbotten Intervention Programme (VIP) is a project and a database owned by the Västerbotten County Council. The VIP database started in 1985 to counteract the high prevalence of cardiovascular disease (CVD) in the county of Västerbotten. Up until 2006, about 106,000 health checks had been performed among the local population at the time that they reached 40, 50 and 60 years old. The health checks includes fitness-, nutrition-, and medical tests. Participants may also fill out a questionnaire about lifestyle, work and family, etc. Statistics Sweden Provides records of i.a. income, education, family and work, and includes the entire Swedish population. Selected parts of this information is connected to the Linnaeus database. The National Board of Health and Welfare Keeps records of all causes of death in Sweden, as well as when and why people have been in contact with health care. This information is connected to the Linnaeus database. The basic question for ALC (Centre for Aging and Living Conditions) is to discover what constitutes successful ageing. What factors cause some to manage better than others do? What does a society that can take care of its elderly look like? How should our health and medical care be organized? In the future, fewer will be of working age. Who, then, will provide for children and older people? And how are these "new" old people going to occupy themselves? Ensuring that old age is of high quality requires effort. What new roles will exist for the increasing amount of elderly? We use several databases in our research. The Demographic Data Base have Europe's largest historical population database. BETULA contains data on health and cognition, and ASTRID is Sweden's only database in which geographic data are tied to socioeconomic data for all Swedish citizens. (From web site/Kenneth Abrahamsson)

Linkage

Standardisation
ISCED and ISCO are used.

Possibility of linkage among databases
The databases is based on personal numbers which allow the linking between various registers and surveys, but the researchers only have access to anonymised numbers.

Data quality

Entry errors if applicable
The errors in the data are relatively few.

Breaks
Though breaks exist, there is a relative consistency in the data over time.

Consistency of terminology or coding used during collection
Though breaks exist, there is a relative consistency in the data over time.

Governance

Contact information
Gunnar Malmberg and Anders Brändström / Centre for Population Studies
Umeå University

90187 Umeå Sweden Phone: +46907865246
Email: Gunnar.Malmberg(at)umu.se
Url: http://www.ddb.umu.se/english/cps/alc/the-linnaeus-database/; http://sjp.sagepub.com/content/38/7/761

Timeliness, transparency
Varies for different kinds of data