We are excited to announce that the SIPHER Synthetic Population can now be access via the UK Data Service as part of their curated collection. This unique resource offers a 'digital twin' of over 52 million individuals in Great Britain, combining various data sources including the UK Household Longitudinal Study (Understanding Society).

To allow easy access to this resource, SIPHER has developed an interactive dashboard. This tool allows exploration of an aggregated version of the synthetic population without any coding or data preparation. Its ‘click and explore’ format enables comparison of areas of interest, creation of bespoke detailed area profiles, development of customised data visualisations, and downloading of the aggregate data used.

Together these resources provide researchers and policymakers with a powerful tool to explore and test policy options. This will significantly enhance research capabilities and help inform evidence-based policy decisions.

Explore: 

• SIPHER Synthetic Population for Individuals in Great Britain, 2019-2021 (UK Data Service Curated Collection, SN9277)
• SIPHER Synthetic Population Dashboard

• Further information and resources  - Synthetic Population product page - SIPHER website

In response to the significant pressures on the housing system, the Scottish Government declared a national housing emergency in May 2024. This decision followed declarations of local emergencies by several local authorities due to rapidly rising homelessness rates.

SIPHER submitted its response to the Scottish Parliament Housing (Scotland) Bill consultation. Recognising housing as a key social determinant of health with a strong influence on public health our response advocates for stable, secure tenancies with genuine tenant control. We believe that implementing these measures effectively can reshape housing, boost health and well-being, and reduce inequalities, especially for lower-income households.

• READ: Housing (Scotland) Bill Call for Views - SIPHER Response submitted on 23 May 2024(PDF) 

We gathered in the Advanced Research Centre (ARC) at the University of Glasgow to review our recent activities, with a special focus on our qualitative work.

The team discussed emerging qualitative outputs and sessions included previews of our new Synthetic Population Dashboard, a prototype tool integrating lived experience narratives into a housing-health systems mapping and findings from a recent inequality aversion study. With modelling session on child poverty microsimulation and the latest version of our decision support tool it was a packed and productive programme that highlighted our progress and set the stage for our final year.

Scotland’s new First Minister, John Swinney announced eradicating child poverty as his key mission as he accepted the position in May 2024.

SIPHER is working with policy partners including Scottish Government to find tools & approaches that provide a better understanding of the policy impact on key drivers of child poverty, and in turn, how these influence wider health.

Visit: Supporting policy development-Child Poverty 

• In March 2024 we held a meeting with our policy partner Scottish Government to share our latest research on decision support modelling for health and economic impacts, and separately with Public Health Scotland to review our Inclusive Economy Indicators. 

• A SIPHER Synthetic Population Workshop for the Welsh Government and Public Health Wales was held in Cardiff this spring. The event provided the necessary knowledge and skills to independently navigate this innovative dataset and participants rated the course highly.  Follow up plans look to support the active policy development process within the Welsh Government. 

• SIPHER attended the Clackmannanshire Council's Alliance event at Alloa Town Hall in April to support discussions on a new Local Outcomes Improvement Plan - a 10-year strategy to address health and economic inequalities across the county.

• We ran a participatory systems mapping workshop with tenants and landlords from Sheffield’s private rented sector in May 2024.  A collaborative project between SIPHER researchers and Sheffield City Council the aim is to inform the development of the Council’s new Housing Strategy. Our analysis will identify key aspects of the housing system that need to change in order to make the private-rented sector an attractive and valued choice, improving the quality of life for both tenants and landlords.                                                                 

• We hosted Anne Kavanagh, the inaugural Professor of Disability and Health at the University of Melbourne, Australia, who presented to the SIPHER team on her work with The Australian Research Alliance for Youth Disability and Mental Health (RAY). Young Australians with disability have much poorer mental health than their peers without disability, a situation that has not changed in decades. We heard of early findings from RAY about the social determinants of young disabled people’s mental health and the challenges in achieving genuine co-design while aligning with policymakers' priorities.

Lisa Garnham, SIPHER Researcher on Understanding Policy Processes and Evidence Needs Workstrand, presented "I Can See My Life in That Diagram" to the FUSE International Conference on Knowledge Exchange in Public Health Cornell University, USA, on 11 June 2024.

The presentation addressed the challenge and necessity of integrating lived experience insights into systems science and policy modelling. It showcased our prototype layered systems map visualization tool, which combines evidence synthesis with lived experience narratives about the housing-health system. The talk emphasised the vital insights offered by lived experience and how they can reveal 'blind spots' in the evidence currently used in UK health research and policy.

This conference paper, featuring contributions from Ellen Stewart, Kat Smith and Clemmie Hill O'Connor included feedback from SIPHER’s Community Panels and policy partners and will be available on our website later this year.

At the European Population Conference held in Edinburgh 12-15 June 2024 SIPHER researcher Andreas Hoehn presented on the creation, validation, and application of our SIPHER Synthetic Population for Individuals in Great Britain. Earlier in June Andreas also visited PHRESH – Public Health RESearch for Health Consortium in Birmingham to discuss - Exploring and testing policy options using synthetic data.

SIPHER Co-Director Corinna Elsenbroich  - has successfully applied to the ESRC Transforming data collections infrastructure for social science opportunity. The project recommended for funding is 'Social Ties, Relationships, Interactions, Knowledge Exchange' (STRIKE). It will scope and develop the data infrastructure needed to build a national picture of social interactions in the UK, building on recent developments in the online collection of time-use data, applying methodological innovation to collect information on face to face social contact, the places and events where interactions occur, and the importance of social ties in people’s daily lives. 

We are delighted to announce Abi Finn is our new Embedded Researcher at Greater Manchester Combined Authority (GMCA). Abi is a Lead Analyst in the GMCA Population Health Research group and part of our GMCA Policy Partner team working closely with colleagues Julian Cox and Jessica Smith.

After three years of excellent work as our SIPHER Consortium Manager, David Innes will be moving to a new role at the University of Glasgow. David's transition will be phased until October, to ensure a seamless handover. Recruitment for a replacement is already underway. We are incredibly grateful for all David has helped SIPHER to achieve and wish him all the best in his new position.

Congratulations to SIPHER researcher Victoria Johnson who passed her viva in May. Victoria's PhD explored innovations in multi-objective multidisciplinary optimization and presented a SIPHER case study. She is part of the team working on our Economic Evaluation & Decision Support (Workstrand 7), under the supervision of Robin Purshouse. 

Our best wishes to Ceri Hughes who concluded her work with SIPHER at the end of June. Ceri was a Topic Expert who collaborated with colleagues across the consortium contributing greatly to our work on the inclusive economy.

Meet the full SIPHER team>