Our research

What is the ECHILD project researching?

We are using ECHILD to better understand how education affects children’s health, and how health affects children’s education. 

The ECHILD project focuses on understanding health and educational outcomes for children and young people. All the information used in the project is anonymous. No individual child can be identified. (There is more about how the data is kept confidential here).

The ECHILD Database covers all of England and it allows us to gain a detailed picture of the challenges that many children face as they grow up. Our results will help government, and the providers of services for these children to better understand their needs and to see who might be falling through the gaps.

The ECHILD Database uses Hospital Episode Statistics (HES) (recorded whenever a person uses a hospital’s services) to categorise different types of vulnerability amongst children and young people.  We then look at hospital use by these children - including planned admissions and visits to A&E - and compare that with use by children not classed as vulnerable.  We can then understand any similarities or differences between these groups and if extra support might be needed to help them do well in the future.

The other key set of information in the ECHILD Database comes from The National Pupil Database (NPD).  Having this information is crucial to our research into the education of children and those with particular health or social care need.  We are using the ECHILD Database for purposes like finding out how effective support for special educational needs or disability (SEND) is in improving children’s health. SEND provision is not evenly distributed across local authorities in England and the level of provision to individual children has varied over time. So that means we can compare health outcomes for children who have special needs, but who will have received different levels of support or in some cases, none at all. 

To help researchers, as part of the ECHILD project we are also looking at the quality of the ECHILD Database to find out its strengths and limitations. It is vital that as well as knowing what is included in the data, we have a clear understanding of what is missing. For example, if information on school absence is weak, then the database shouldn’t be used to answer research questions related to absence. 

For more information about current ECHILD reseach please check out the new ECHILD website here: https://www.echild.ac.uk/research