MRC Centre of Epidemiology for Child Health

How to find us

How to find us


MRC Centre of Epidemiology for Child Health
UCL Institute of Child Health
30 Guilford Street
London, WC1N 1EH
Tel: +44 (0)20 7905 2362

Great Ormond Street Hospital


Funders

Economic and Social Research Council
Medical Research Council

News

Tim Peakman visits the new BCS team to share experiences on UK Biobank

Mon, 05 Mar 2012 15:31:23 +0000

UK Biobank Executive Director Tim Peakman visited the new BCS team at UCL on Friday, February 24. Peakman provided a brief presentation on the opportunities for collaboration with the new BCS. Within his presentation, Peakman highlighted some of the similarities between the two large-scale research projects and shared various lessons learned during the UK Biobank [...]

Read more...

First Scientific Working Group meeting held

Wed, 22 Feb 2012 16:49:01 +0000

The first of a series of new BCS scientific working group (SWG) meetings began at the end of January 2012. The group, entitled “Mothers, Fathers, Partners and Families”, had a lively discussion on ways to engage, recruit and retain this important target audience as they pertain to the new BCS. As this was the first [...]

Read more...

Life Study Logo

The new UK Birth Cohort Study of environment, development, health and wellbeing

The centre is coordinating the UK’s next large birth cohort study which will collect information on more than 100,000 children across the UK.

The aim of this study is to understand how the family, social and physical environment in very early life influences child development, health and wellbeing. This study involves leading scientists and researchers from biomedical and social sciences in universities across the UK.

A website for the study is can be found here.

Life Study will allow us to investigate:

  • biological factors that contribute to poor health, and poor educational or social conditions for young children. 
  • the complex interplay between biology, behaviour, and environment during early development and how it influences the future health and wellbeing of children and their parents.
  • the social diversity of the next generation of UK citizens, including information on family structures, ethnic identities and socioeconomic circumstances.
  • how inequality and diversity influence family structures, the health and lifestyle choices of parents, and children’s development from before birth and through the first years of their life.
  • factors during fetal and early life that affect health and development of young children and that affect markers of increased risks of ill health, disability, cognitive or social impairment, or economic disadvantage in later life.
  • family influences on child development, readiness for school and educational attainment, including the influences of the parents’ social class of origin, education and cultural heritage. 
  • the changing employment circumstances of families as the UK moves out of an economic recession which is hitting those who are already disadvantaged (low-skilled groups) and young adults (tomorrow’s parents) particularly hard.

Page last modified on 06 aug 12 14:45