Growing up Healthy in Families Across the Globe: Cross-Cultural Harmonisation of Childhood Risk-Factors Using Longitudinal Studies from Ireland, Scotland and New Zealand

Patty Doran (), Paul Bradshaw (), Susan Morton (), El-Shadan Tautolo (), James Williams () and Chris Cunningham ()
Additional contact information
Patty Doran: University of Manchester
Paul Bradshaw: ScotCen Social Research
Susan Morton: University of Auckland
El-Shadan Tautolo: Auckland University of Technology
James Williams: Economic and Social Research Institute
Chris Cunningham: Massey University

Child Indicators Research, 2020, vol. 13, issue 6, No 2, 1935 pages

Abstract: Abstract The Growing Up Healthy in Families Across the Globe project is an international collaboration examining the potential for harmonised analysis using five longitudinal studies (from New Zealand, Ireland and Scotland). All five studies follow the lives of children, are interested in the dynamics of family change and work to inform policy to potentially improve population well-being across the life-course. Comparative analysis from harmonised longitudinal studies, where change over time is emphasised, provides a unique view to determine how and why environments change, which environments are supportive and which are not. This paper discusses the challenges and tasks involved when preparing and conducting harmonised analysis, and initial findings from the Growing Up Healthy project are discussed. The studies were, from New Zealand, Te Hoe Nuku Roa, the Pacific Island Families Study and Growing Up in New Zealand, and from Scotland and Ireland Growing Up in Scotland and Growing Up in Ireland. Post hoc data harmonisation of measures resulted in the identification of several closely aligned variables. The harmonised descriptive variables from the five studies highlight many similarities across the studies. A risk factor model to predict child development outcomes (using the Strengths and Difficulties Questionnaire) was developed and resulted in very similar patterns of risk in New Zealand, Ireland and Scotland. Risks included: maternal relationship status, maternal education, smoking in pregnancy, maternal self-reported health and maternal long-standing illness. The insights will be of interest to all those concerned with child development in contemporary New Zealand, Ireland, Scotland and other similar countries.

Keywords: Longitudinal; Children; Harmonisation; Comparative; Cohort studies (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2020
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
http://link.springer.com/10.1007/s12187-020-09732-w Abstract (text/html)
Access to the full text of the articles in this series is restricted.

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:spr:chinre:v:13:y:2020:i:6:d:10.1007_s12187-020-09732-w

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
http://www.springer. ... f-life/journal/12187

DOI: 10.1007/s12187-020-09732-w

Access Statistics for this article

Child Indicators Research is currently edited by Asher Ben-Arieh

More articles in Child Indicators Research from Springer, The International Society of Child Indicators (ISCI)
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Sonal Shukla () and Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing ().