The 1970 British Cohort Study (BCS70) is a continuing, multi-disciplinary

longitudinal survey 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 ob ...

monitoring the development of babies born in the UK during the week of 5–11 April 1970.

History

Since the start of the BCS70, eight full sets of data have been collected in 1970, 1975, 1980, 1986, 1996, 1999/2000, 2004/2005 and 2012. The following survey was planned for 2016/2017. The first wave in 1970, called th
British Births Survey
was conducted by th
National Birthday Trust Fund
together with the

Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists The Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists (RCOG) is a professional association based in London, United Kingdom. Its members, including people with and without medical degrees, work in the field of obstetrics and gynaecology, that ...

in order to collect information to compare with those of the

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). The following two sweeps in 1975 and 1980, when the study was known as th
Child Health and Education Study
(CHES), were carried out by the Department of Child Health at Bristol University. The 1986 survey was conducted by th
International Centre for Child Studies
and called Youthscan which was then taken over for the following surveys by the Social Statistics Research Unit (SSRU), now known as th
Centre for Longitudinal Studies
(CLS). By 2016 there were 770 papers and books published about the 1970 British Cohort Study. The scope of the BCS70 has been broadened in the course of the different surveys. While the focus was on medical aspects at birth, factors such as physical, educational, social and economic development were subsequently taken into account. Members of the 1970 birth cohort study created a

Facebook Facebook is an online social media and social networking service owned by American company Meta Platforms. Founded in 2004 by Mark Zuckerberg with fellow Harvard College students and roommates Eduardo Saverin, Andrew McCollum, Dust ...

page for themselves.

Methodology and scope

The primary method of data collection consists of face-to-face interviews (with the parents), self-completion questionnaires and psychological and educational measurements. The sample size included 17,287 babies in England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland born in 1970.

Survey results

The findings from the BCS70 have generated over 770 publications, a list of which can be foun
here
One key publication which also includes data of other British Cohort Studies i
Elsa Ferri, John Bynner and Michael Wadsworth (eds.)(2003) Changing Britain, Changing Lives: three generations at the turn of the century
ref>ESDS Longitudinal, BCS70 dataset guide

Re-using the data

The data and additional study information are available on the website of th
Economic and Social Data Service
(ESDS). Users will have t
register
in order to access the download section.

References

Bibliography

External links

CLS website

ESDS Longitudinal website
{Dead link, date=February 2021 , bot=InternetArchiveBot , fix-attempted=yes British medical research Society of the United Kingdom Child welfare in the United Kingdom Cohort studies Human development UCL Institute of Education British Cohort Study British Cohort Study