Active Lives Survey 2023-24 Year 9 – technical note

Moderate activity: This is defined as activity where you raise your heart rate and feel a little out of breath.

Vigorous activity: This is where you are breathing hard and fast and your heart rate has increased significantly (you will not be able to say more than a few words without pausing for breath).

People could also mention activities which were not listed on the questionnaire and these were coded to the relevant activity. These data then fed into the measures presented in the analysis (Levels of activity and taking part).

The data have been cleaned such that duplicated fitness activities within a single questionnaire have been removed, missing durations have been imputed using the median duration for that activity and extreme durations have been capped at the 95th percentile for that activity.

The questionnaire was set up such that people selected the activities they did. Any activity which was not selected was assumed not to have been done. 

The Chief Medical Officer defines an active person as someone who, over the course of a week, does 150 or more moderate intensity equivalent (MIE) minutes of physical activity. Breaking that down further: 

• Moderate intensity equivalent (MIE) minutes means each ‘moderate’ minute counts as one minute. Any vigorous activity counts for double, so each vigorous minute counts as two moderate minutes. 
• The 150 MIE minutes can be achieved in one go or in chunks of at least 10 minutes across different days through a combination of physical activities.

Associated measures are ‘fairly active’, which refers to 30-149 minutes by the same definition, and ‘inactive’, which refers to less than 30 minutes.

The sporting future guidelines refer to all sports, fitness, cycling, walking, dance and gardening activity. Gardening does not, however, fall under Sport England's remit and so, unless referenced otherwise, this is excluded from the data presented.

Activity is considered to be muscle strengthening if it required sufficient effort to ‘make your muscles feel some tension, shake or feel warm’.

This is measured as the equivalent of 30 minutes or more activity at least twice in the last 28 days. Each session must last at least 10 minutes and be of at least moderate intensity. 

An individual can reach the minimum threshold by a combination of two 30-minute sessions across the last 28 days or by six 10-minute sessions, for example. This is measured for all activities including sports, fitness, dance, cycling and walking (including for travel). 

In the analysis, specific activities have been grouped together into composites to look at groups of sports or disciplines. When creating composites across activities, anyone who did not tick any of the relevant activities which feed into the composite were treated as not having done that composite activity. Therefore, there are no missing values for these composites.

In some cases, intensity was assumed and not asked (assumed always to be light, moderate or vigorous). Activities done by those aged 65 and over were assumed to be at least moderate in all cases and therefore counted in the taking part measure. Results are also presented for smaller groups of specific activities. 

The table below shows the specific activities which are included under each of the composite activity groupings used in the report. Where relevant, the wording or description given in the questionnaire is also included for reference.

Definitions of composite activities within the Active Lives survey

Respondents were asked a series of questions about different types of volunteering in sport and physical activity.

These questions were updated from November 2019 to provide more detailed data on the frequency, duration and longevity of volunteering activity.

Please see the Technical Note for the November 2019-2020 release for more detail on the updated volunteering questions.

• Life satisfaction: “How satisfied are you with life nowadays?"
• Happiness: "How happy did you feel yesterday?"
• Worthwhile: "To what extent are the things you do in your life worthwhile"
• Anxiety: "How anxious did you feel yesterday?"

Additional questions were included to ascertain respondents' individual resilience and their perceptions of community cohesion. These are presented as mean scores out of five:

• Goals: "I can achieve most of the goals I set myself"
• Resilience: "If I find something difficult, I keep trying until I can do it"
• Community trust: "Most people in your local area can be trusted"
• Community integration: "Your local area is a place where people from different backgrounds get on well together"

For each statement, respondents were asked the extent to which they agree or disagree that:

• They find sport/exercise enjoyable and satisfying;
• It's important to them to do sport/exercise regularly;
• They feel they have the opportunity to be physically active;
• They feel they have the ability to be physically active;
• They feel confident when taking part in physical activity;
• They experience the places and environments they exercise in as inclusive and welcoming;
• They feel that they see people who are similar to them when exercising; and,
• They feel safe in the public places and settings where they would like to exercise.

Capability and opportunity

For Year 9, the statements about opportunity and capability were moved. Whereas before they were situated before the motivation statements (Section H), they are now situated between motivation and inclusivity (Section I).

This was to accommodate the addition of a question on confidence, to ensure it did not influence answers to the motivation questions. 

An unexpected impact has been noted as a result of this change on how individuals answer the capability and opportunity questions, causing a systematic drop in the proportion strongly agreeing with both statements, which is fully attributable to this and does not represent a real change.

As such, comparison with earlier data points should be made with care. Earlier data can be found in the data tables if required.

The second question asks whether their gender matches the sex they were registered as at birth. Where respondents indicated that their gender identity differs from their sex assigned at birth, they were coded as transgender. 

Number of long-term limiting impairments

The questionnaire asked whether people had any physical or mental health conditions or illnesses that have lasted or are expected to last 12 months or more.

Those who said 'yes' were asked whether these physical or mental health conditions or illnesses have a substantial effect on their ability to do normal daily activities.

All those who reported any conditions or impairments were asked whether the disability or illness affected them in any of 13 ways (including other).

These were long-term pain, chronic health condition, mobility, dexterity, mental health, visual, breathing, memory, hearing, learning, speech, behavioural, other (more detailed descriptions were provided on the questionnaire).

Those who answered 'yes' to the impairment having a substantial effect were considered to have a limiting impairment. The number of limiting impairments was derived from the question which asked about types of impairment.

It should be noted that this is the number of impairments from a set list reported by people who said that any of their conditions or illnesses have a substantial effect.

Those in the no limiting impairments category are those who reported no conditions or illnesses and those who reported that any conditions they have do not have a substantial effect on their ability to do normal daily activities.

Social status

The measure used is a National Statistics Socio-economic Classification (NS-SEC) measure derived using the self-coded method.

This assigns people aged 16-74 to a classification using information collected about employment status (self-employed or employed), the size of organisation and supervisory roles.

People are then asked to place themselves in one of eight occupational groups. From this, a five class NS-SEC measure can be derived.

Testing of this method by ONS showed a 75% agreement with the interviewer coded method. More details about this method can be obtained from ONS, since the standard self-coded method was used.

Current education stage

Those who reported that they were in full or part-time education when asked about their working status were asked about where they are studying.

In addition, those who did not report being in full or part-time education were asked whether they were studying for a recognised qualification.

Those who were studying for a recognised qualification were asked where they were studying. 

Characteristics of inequality

This provides an indication of the number of inequality-related characteristics reported by adults based on disability, age, social group, ethnicity, being pregnant or having a child under one year and religion. This is calculated from individual adult characteristics based on their survey responses. 

This is a new measure in the tables for Nov 2023-24 and is available for all previous years except for Nov 2015-16 (characteristics of inequality is not available for Nov 2015-16 because data on religion was not collected during this period).

¹ Section 14 in the ONS Socio-economic classification guidance.