More than 20 years have passed since the Millennium Cohort Study was launched, a longitudinal study that follows the lives of over 19,000 people in the United Kingdom. Now a new era of birth cohort research could be dawning. In her LIfBi Lecture, Professor Lisa Calderwood from University College London presented the Early Life Cohort Feasibility Study (ELC-FS), which is intended to create the basis for a new UK birth cohort study.

The ELC-FS, led by the Centre for Longitudinal Studies at University College London, is currently collecting information on several thousand infants aged 8-10 months and their families. It is also testing innovative methodological approaches to assess the feasibility of a comprehensive new large-scale longitudinal study. Calderwood, co-director of the ELC-FS, presented scientific and methodological innovations of the feasibility study in her LIfBi Lecture in Bamberg in mid-July.

In order to reach ethnic minorities and families with a low socio-economic status in particular, the birth and health registers of all UK countries were used for recruitment for the first time. In addition to field tests that used various monetary and non-monetary incentives and different forms of data linkage consent opportunities, a smaller group of participants was used to test whether the additional collection of saliva samples reduced the willingness to participate. 

Smaller field tests were particularly complex, in which previously unestablished methods such as eye-tracking and mobile EEGs as well as long-term recordings of the language environment were tested for surveys. The aim was both to record acceptance among respondents and to evaluate the quality of the measurements by trained field agency staff.

During the visit by Professor Calderwood and her colleague Laurel Fish, staff from various LIfBi working units took the opportunity to exchange ideas with the British researchers. The experience gained in the United Kingdom may prove particularly valuable for the preparation of the new NEPS starting cohort SC7 on early education. In particular, the methodological experiments regarding study management - for example on incentivization, consent or the specific training needs of interviewers for the use of neuroscientific technologies - provide valuable impulses for the work at LIfBi.

Website of the ELC-FS (Link)