For the general public and study participants

REWHARD is an infrastructure for researchers working with individual-level data, in other words, information about people. The information comes from questionnaires, interviews and national registers. The researchers' findings lead to increased knowledge about people's health and living conditions. You can read more about this type of research on this page.

Photo: Hannah Busing, Unsplash

About REWHARD

REWHARD is a national research infrastructure. This means that researchers in Sweden can apply to use the information we have collected for their own research. It is beneficial that our data can be used in more research studies, as the information that people have given us is put to greater use. When researchers do not need to collect their own data, they also have more time for the research itself.

Used in research on living conditions and health

Our infrastructure contains information about how people in Sweden live and reside, about their education and working conditions. There is also information about the population's health and sickness absence. Some data has been collected through people responding to surveys or participating in interviews. Other data comes from various national registers.

Our data can be used for research on many subjects related to society and health, such as sociology, public health science and epidemiology. Since we have data on many people and for a long period of time, researchers can study factors that influence how people live and how they are doing. Through the researchers’ work, we can gain important knowledge about how the health, working environment and living conditions of the population can be improved.

On the page ‘Research results’, you can find research news and publications based on our data.

Responsible handling of data

The information that people have given to us is valuable. It is a great privilege to be entrusted with it, and we therefore work continuously to ensure that our data is handled securely. This means that there are strict rules about who can access the data and how it should be stored and disclosed.

The data we use is pseudonymised, which means that participants' personal data has been replaced with a code. This is done so that it is not possible to see what an individual person has answered. The research results are then reported at group level. The researchers who work with our data also need to follow other rules for research involving humans, for example, they need to have ethical approval for their research project.

Would you like to know more?

If you would like to learn more about how research is conducted, please visit forskning.se. There you will find news about research and a guide for those who want to know how research works.

Fatta forskning (in Swedish)

Here you can find more information for participants in SLOSH and Y-SLOSH:

For participants (in Swedish)

On this page you can read the privacy policy for SLOSH participants:

Privacy policy for SLOSH (in Swedish)

Here you can find information for participants in the Level of living survey (LNU) :

Welcome to participate in the Level of living survey 2026 (in Swedish)

Questions and answers

Here we have gathered some frequently asked questions and answers about our activity. Please contact us if you cannot find the answer to your question.

The results are often published in scientific journals. This allows other researchers to build on the new knowledge through further studies. Other research results are used to produce reports on behalf of a government agency.

The research contributes to increased knowledge among researchers, teachers and decision-makers. The results can be used as a knowledge base for politicians when they make decisions on, for example, the working environment, sick leave rules or societal development.

In order for the research results to be as good as possible, information about many people is needed. We get the best results if the entire population is represented, so that there is information about people from different groups in society as well as different ages and genders. Therefore, your response cannot be replaced by anyone else's. By responding to surveys, you are making an important contribution to Swedish welfare research.

Our research groups have developed their own questionnaires that are used to collect information from participants. The questionnaires have had roughly the same design for many years, which makes it possible to study the development over time. The questionnaires are sent out regularly to the people who have been selected to participate.

How often the questionnaires are sent out varies between different research projects. Some projects collect data every year, while others do so less frequently. Surveys can be digital or sent by post. To send out the surveys, the researchers enlist the help of a supplier, such as Statistics Sweden. The supplier sends out the surveys and registers the responses submitted by the participants

Swedish authorities have information about individuals' work, health and social circumstances in various registers. Registers may also contain information about municipalities or companies.

By using data from registers, it is possible, for example, to investigate risk factors for various diseases or sickness absence for different parts of the population. The advantage of register data is that it contains information about the entire population and that researchers do not need to collect the data themselves.

Researchers can apply for data from registers for research purposes. To obtain information from public registers, researchers must submit an application to the authority responsible for the register.

For example, researchers must specify the time period and information relevant to the research study. The researcher must also provide information about their research project and attach an approved ethics application.

The authority then decides whether the data can be disclosed. If the application is approved, the data is delivered to the researcher in a secure manner.

The information disclosed is usually pseudonymised, which means that the researcher cannot see anyone's identity. For example, personal identification numbers are replaced with a code. This means that the researcher cannot know which information applies to you.

It is not possible to see what you have answered, as information such as your name and personal identification number is replaced by a code. The research results are reported at group level, which means that it is not possible to identify your answers.

Other researchers may apply to use our data to conduct their own research projects. In order to access the data, ethical approval must be obtained and the researcher must be able to justify why the data is needed.

We do not disclose more information than is necessary to carry out the project in question. Identifying data such as personal identification numbers and names are never disclosed to researchers.

Data is stored electronically on servers and storage devices that are protected against intrusion and fire. Access to data is strictly limited, and any identifying information is stored separately.

Contact

You are welcome to contact our research groups if you have any questions. If you are unsure who to contact, please get in touch with our coordinator.

Please contact our research groups in the first instance if you have any questions or comments about how personal data is processed. You can also contact the Data Protection Officer at the respective university.

  • The Data Protection Officer at Stockholm University can be reached at: dso@su.se

Last updated: 2026-02-12

Source: Swedish Institute for Social Research,Department of Psychology

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