Evaluation of linkage between health, education and social care administrative data for 21 million children in England

The study evaluated the quality of linkage between health, education and social care administrative data for children in England (ECHILD). The research included 34.2 million patients and 25.3 million pupils born between September 1984 and March 2023. Results showed that over 90 percent of children with hospital records linked to school records, achieving a total of 21 million linked individuals. However, researchers found significant variations between groups – individuals living in London, in more deprived areas, or with ethnicity other than White were less likely to be included in the data. The study highlights that such population-level datasets often under-represent specific groups and that linkage evaluation is critical for understanding potential sources of bias in analyses.