National Records of Scotland

Preserving the past, Recording the present, Informing the future

Scottish Longitudinal Study (SLS)

Scottish Longitudinal Study (SLS)

The Scottish Longitudinal Study (SLS) contains linked census, vital events and education data for a five per cent sample of the population of Scotland.

SLS includes data on over 270,000 people usually resident in Scotland, each one of them with their own unique combination of life events. The below diagram is an example of the type of data that can be found in SLS as well as the variety of health data that can be linked following appropriate approval.

Timeline showing an example event history of a female SLS member

A textual description of the image can be found below the document Example event history of a female Scottish Longitudinal Study (SLS) member born January 1991 (Adobe Acrobat Portable Document Format (PDF) 10Kb).

About SLS

  • What is SLS?
  • What data does SLS contain?

Using SLS

  • What can SLS be used for?
  • Who can use SLS?
  • How to access the data?

Governance and Security of SLS

  • Confidentiality and security
  • Governance of SLS
  • Funders

Research and Publications using SLS

  • Research and outputs using SLS data
  • Conferences & Events

Further Information

For more information about SLS please visit the Scottish Longitudinal Study website.

If you have any further questions about SLS or would like to discuss a potential research project, please contact us via email at [email protected].