FOI Ref: FOI/2021/2896
You asked
Please supply the datasets of vaccination uptake, with information such as age, ethnicity, gender, as well as potentially social class.
This is with the aim of comparing it to various UK governments policies, such as travel restrictions and isolation privileges, to see if the implication of these policies led to a spike in uptake.
We said
Thank you for your request.
The COVID-19 Infection Survey is a household survey that estimates the number of people testing positive for infection and for antibodies in the UK. Our statistics refer to individuals in the community, by which we mean private households. These figures exclude infections reported in hospitals, care homes or other institutional settings.
In the dataset accompanying our antibody and vaccination bulletin, you can find:
The modelled percentage of the adult population vaccinated in England, Wales, Northern Ireland, and Scotland on tabs 1e, 2d, 3d, and 4d respectively.
The modelled percentage of the adult population vaccinated by age in England, Wales, Northern Ireland, and Scotland on tabs 1g, 2e, 3e, and 4e respectively.
We do hold identifiable microdata on vaccination by sex and ethnicity but we would be unable to publish this as it is considered personal information. Section 39 of the Statistics and Registration Service Act 2007 (SRSA) renders it an offence to disclose information held by the Statistics Board for statistical purposes that would identify an individual or a body corporate. As we are prohibited by law from publishing statistics in which individuals can be identified, we find that Section 44 of the Freedom of Information Act 2000 (FOIA) applies. Section 44 is an absolute exemption and no consideration of the public interest test needs to be applied.
If you are interested in accessing the microdata for this survey yourself, you can apply to be an accredited researcher with the secure research service (SRS). Details of this can be found at this link. Once you have become an accredited researcher, you can make a project application to access the microdata.
You may be interested in accessing the National Immunisation Management Service (NIMS) which is the system of record for the vaccination programme in England. This data is held by Public Health England. They can be contacted at wn_coronavirus@phe.gov.uk.
For further information and an overview of all the data published across the ONS, please check our ONS COVID Insights Tool.