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cohort studies A cohort study is a particular form of longitudinal study that samples a cohort (a group of people who share a defining characteristic, typically those who experienced a common event in a selected period, such as birth or graduation), performing ...
in
Britain Britain most often refers to: * The United Kingdom, a sovereign state in Europe comprising the island of Great Britain, the north-eastern part of the island of Ireland and many smaller islands * Great Britain, the largest island in the United King ...
include four long-term medical and social studies, carried out over the lives of a group of participants, from birth. Two of these studies have continued for over 50 years.


Principal cohort studies

* National Survey of Health & Development (NSHD), established in 1946 *
National Child Development Study The National Child Development Study (NCDS) is a continuing, multi-disciplinary longitudinal study which follows the lives of 17,415 people born in England, Scotland and Wales from 17,205 women during the week of 3–9 March 1958. The results from ...
(NCDS), established in 1958 * 1970 British Cohort Study (BCS70) *
Millennium Cohort Study The Millennium Cohort Study (MCS) is a longitudinal survey conducted by the Centre for Longitudinal Studies (CLS) at the University of London, following the lives of a sample of about 18,818 babies born in the UK in the year 2000–2001. His ...
(MCS), established in 2000


Methods and outcomes

The studies involve repeated surveys of large numbers of individuals (typically around 17,000) from birth and throughout their lives. They have collected information on education and employment, family and parenting, physical and mental health, and social attitudes, as well as applying cognitive tests at various ages. They are
longitudinal studies A longitudinal study (or longitudinal survey, or panel study) is a research design that involves repeated observations of the same variables (e.g., people) over short or long periods of time (i.e., uses longitudinal data). It is often a type of obs ...
that follow the same groups of people throughout their lives. As such, they enable research exploring how histories of health, wealth, education, family and employment are interwoven for individuals, vary between them and affect outcomes and achievements in later life. There have been approximately 2,500 published pieces of research worldwide using the four studies according to one sourc

and over 6,000 papers and forty books by another source. Comparisons between the different generations in the four cohorts enable academics to chart social change and start to untangle the reasons behind it. Findings from the studies have contributed to debates and enquiries in a number of policy areas over the last half-century including: education and equality of opportunity; poverty and social exclusion; gender differences in pay and employment; social class differences in health; changing family structures; and anti-social behaviour. The studies were key sources of evidence for a number of UK Government inquiries, such as the Plowden Report, Plowden Committee on Primary Education (1967), the Warnock Committee on Children with Special Educational Needs (1978), the Finer Committee on One Parent Families (1966–74), the Acheson Independent Inquiry into Inequalities in Health (1998) and the Moser Committee on Adult Basic Skills (1997–99). A study of working mothers and early child development was influential in making the argument for increased
maternity leave Parental leave, or family leave, is an employee benefit available in almost all countries. The term "parental leave" may include maternity, Paternity (law), paternity, and adoption leave; or may be used distinctively from "maternity leave" and ...
. Another study on the impact of assets, such as savings and investments on future life chances, played a major part in the development of assets-based welfare policy, including the much-debated Child Trust Fund.


See also

*
Avon Longitudinal Study of Parents and Children The Avon Longitudinal Study of Parents and Children (ALSPAC), also known as Children of the 90s and formerly the Avon Longitudinal Study of Pregnancy and Childhood, is a cohort study of children born in the former county of Avon, England during 1 ...
, established 1991 * Lothian Birth Cohort Studies, established 1921 * Dunedin Multidisciplinary Health and Development Study New Zealand


References


External links


Centre for Longitudinal Studies
including a searchable database of all the publications from NCDS, BCS70 and MCS
National Child Development Study

British Cohort Study 1970

Millennium Cohort Study

National Survey of Health and Development
{{DEFAULTSORT:British Birth Cohort Studies British medical research Society of the United Kingdom Child welfare in the United Kingdom Cohort studies