Skip to content
Closer - The home of longitudinal research

Study Spotlight: The Whitehall II Study

Blog | | Jennie Blows

Older male walking down an empty street. He's carrying a backpack.In the penultimate Study Spotlight instalment, we shine the light on the Whitehall II Study—a unique study following civil servants in the UK. 

About the study

Founded by Professor Sir Michael Marmot in 1985, the Whitehall II Study aims to investigate the causes of social inequalities in health. Between 1985-88, the study recruited 10,308 men and women, aged between 35-55 years and working as civil servants in the London offices of 20 government departments.  

Since this first wave of data collection, self-completion questionnaires and clinical data have been collected from Whitehall II study participants every two to five years. To date the study has conducted 13 waves of data collection, with the most recent completed between March 2019 and January 2023.   

Since 2009, under the leadership of Professor Mika Kivimaki, the study has evolved into an investigation of the differences in how people age. The cohort has been followed for nearly 40 years and has been looking into the development of preclinical and clinical diseases, functional impairments (limitations due to illness), frailty, and disability. 

The study’s current work involves investigating blood-based biomarkers in relation to accelerated cognitive decline and other health-related outcomes. They are also exploring the role of cardiometabolic and behavioural factors in the causes of Alzheimer’s disease, and studying the factors driving health transitions from a state of wellbeing to disease, multimorbidity, and mortality. 

Over the years, Whitehall II has also been a valuable source of evidence on the importance of psychosocial factors, such as life stress, in cardiovascular disease and diabetes. It has also provided insight into the contribution of unhealthy behaviours and traditional risk factors like high blood pressure.   

The study’s findings have also shaped clinical guidelines, public health policies, and research agendas. In 2023-24, these included the Nature Review on life stress (Nature Reviews Endocrinology 2023; 19: 10-27), the Lancet Commission on Dementia Prevention, the US Alzheimer’s Association Facts and Figures, the European guidelines for cardiovascular risk management in patients with diabetes, and the UK NICE guidelines on lipid lowering. 

Other recent research has investigated: 

  • Plasma proteomic and metabolomic profiles predicting the onset of metabolic, vascular, respiratory, musculoskeletal and neurological diseases and cancers.   
  • Potential consequences of changing a fasting glucose-based diagnostic approach of diabetes to an HbA1c-based approach in terms of identifying risk of macro- and microvascular disease.  

You can find out more about these papers, as well as a full overview of Whitehall II publications on the study website. 

Promoting the use of existing Whitehall data in the wider community

Bona fide researchers in the UK and internationally can access Whitehall II study data via the Dementias Platform, UK—where Whitehall II continues to be the most accessed dataset.  

All applications to DPUK for access to Whitehall II data are processed first by the DPUK administrative team before being reviewed by the study’s data sharing committee. More information can be found on the Whitehall II Cohort – DPUK Data Portal study page or the Whitehall II study website. 

Discover the data

Whitehall II has been running for almost 40 years and during that time, the study has collected rich information about their participants lives including: family history, physical and mental health, health behaviours, personality, psychosocial and socioeconomic measures.  

Our data discoverability team are currently working with the Whitehall II team to add metadata from the study to our Discovery research tool for longitudinal population studies. This update will enable researchers to search, explore and assess Whitehall II study variables and questions in unprecedented detail. Sign up to our monthly newsletter, Longitudinal News to ensure you don’t miss our announcement once the update is live!  

If you’re particularly interested in using mental health data from Whitehall II for your research, the Catalogue of Mental Health Measures provides on information about the measures used in the study. Funded as part of a CLOSER project on documenting mental health measures, the catalogue provides information about thousands of standard and non-standard mental health and wellbeing measures collected in over 50 UK cohort and longitudinal population studies.  

Scratching the surface

Of course, this spotlight just provides a snapshot of the Whitehall II Study, its research findings, and insight into the data it has collected over the years. If you would like to access the data or have any questions, please do get in touch with the Whitehall II study team. 

You can keep up to date with all the latest developments on Whitehall II and the longitudinal research community via our monthly newsletter, Longitudinal News. 

Further information

This blog is part of our ‘Study Spotlight’ series. This series showcases the CLOSER partner studies, demonstrating how to make the most of these valuable assets through CLOSER’s research resources. Every month, we turn the spotlight on a new theme, producing a series of blogs that delve into the backgrounds of studies that share similar characteristics, such as their study sample, design, or topics of research interest.      

‘Study Spotlight’ helps you gain a deeper understanding of the studies in our partnership and how you can better utilise these on your research journey.      

Previous Study Spotlight blogs: 

On Twitter? Follow #StudySpotlight to keep up to date with the series throughout the year.    

Related links: