This is a new service. Your feedback will help us to improve it.

Long-term health condition: number of conditions

  • Mnemonic reference

    LTCOND2

  • Applicability

    Person

  • Type

    Primary variable

Definition

A long term condition is any condition(s) which has lasted, or is expected to last at least 12 months. People were asked to tick all boxes that applied to them, of which there were 10. This variable reports how many boxes have been ticked i.e. how many conditions from the list they have. For LTCOND2 each tick simply counts as 1 i.e. a person could have ticked one box to refer to several long-term health conditions but this will only be recorded as 1. If the individual has ticked one of the boxes stating they have a condition as well as the ‘No condition’ box the ‘No condition’ tick will be ignored.

Classification

Total number of categories 10

Code Name
00 No conditions
01 Single category of condition
02 2 categories of condition
03 3 categories of condition
04 4 categories of condition
05 5 categories of condition
06 6 categories of condition
07 7 categories of condition
08 8 categories of condition
09 9 categories of condition

Source question or variables

20: Do you have any of the following conditions which have lasted, or are expected to last, at least 12 months?

Tick all that apply.

  • Deafness or partial hearing loss
  • Blindness or partial sight loss
  • Learning disability (for example, Down's Syndrome)
  • Learning difficulty (for example, dyslexia)
  • Developmental disorder (for example, Autistic Spectrum Disorder or Asperger's Syndrome)
  • Physical disability
  • Mental health condition
  • Long-term illness, disease or condition
  • Other condition, please write in

Reason for asking

The question is aimed at meeting user demand, and to help improve the planning and provision of services for people with a specific long-term health condition.

England & Wales (2011) and Scotland (2001) comparisons

This question was new to Scotland’s 2011 census so there is no comparison to be made with 2001 questions and England & Wales don’t have a similar question included in their questionnaire. Northern Ireland did have a question on long-term health conditions in their questionnaire, but with a different set of response categories which limits comparability with data for Scotland.

Known Quality Issues

It is known that a response to question 20 was missing for a significant number of people in submitted census questionnaires. This report Long Term Condition Quality Report provides some technical details on the measures that were taken to address this quality issue during data processing.