MRC Centre of Epidemiology for Child Health

MRC Centre of Epidemiology for Child Health

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UK Birth Cohort Study

The 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. This birth cohort study will provide information that can be used by researchers to improve the health and wellbeing of children, both now and in the future. 

In 2011 Professor Carol Dezateux was appointed director of this new UK birth cohort study, a major initiative funded by the Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC) and the Medical Research Council (MRC).

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 currently under construction.

The UK Birth Cohort 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.

Study research themes

We will address these issues through a range of more specific research questions based around the following broad themes:

• social inequality and the parental life course
• parental employment and the economic security of families
• maternal and paternal health and wellbeing
• child health, development and educational trajectories
• childhood neuropsychiatric, developmental and neurological disorders
• growth in infancy, childhood obesity, nutrition and physical activity
• environment and health.