What you need to know if you have been nominated as the ‘Stable Contact’ for someone who is part of Understanding Society.
What is Understanding Society?
Understanding Society is a special study that follows the lives of tens of thousands of people who live in the UK. The Study collects information about people’s life events, family life, health, education and work, social attitudes and more. Taking part in the Study helps us understand how life in the UK is changing and what stays the same.
Who uses Understanding Society?
Understanding Society is used by university researchers, government departments, think tanks and charities to understand what real people think, feel and do.
Find out more about Understanding Society here.
What does a Stable Contact do?
We contact our Study members every year to ask them to complete their survey. Sometimes we lose touch with Study members, perhaps because they’ve moved house or are working away from home for a long period of time. If we don’t get a response from the Study member they have asked us to contact you to see if you have up-to-date contact details for them. You don’t have to tell us this information if we do need to contact you, but it would be very helpful for our Study if you did. The person who has nominated you as their Stable Contact has given us permission to ask you this information. In order to contact you the Study member has given us your name and postal address.
Are my contact details confidential?
Yes. We take great care to protect the confidentiality of our Study members and their Stable Contacts. Your contact details will only be used if we can’t get in touch with the Study member through the contact details that they have given us. You may ask to be removed from our list of stable contacts at any time – just contact us using the details on this page. Your contact information is never shared with anyone outside the Study and is never used for marketing purposes.
Who runs Understanding Society?
The Study is run by researchers at the University of Essex. We are funded by the Economic and Social Research Council and some government departments.