1958 National Child Development Study (NCDS)

Aims
The 1958 National Child Development Study (NCDS) is a multidisciplinary national longitudinal birth cohort study following the lives of over 17,000 people born in 1958. The study aims to improve understanding of the factors affecting human development over the whole lifespan. Follows histories of health, wealth, education, family and employment from early life with linked biomedical and examination performance data integrated into the study.

Institution
Centre for Longitudinal Studies (CLS) - Institute of Education (IoE), UCL

Geographic coverage - Nations
England, Scotland, Wales

Geographic coverage - Regions
Nationwide

Start date
1958

Catalogue record last updated
10/04/2024

Sample type
Birth cohort

Sample details
The NCDS follows the lives of all people born in England, Scotland and Wales in one particular week of March 1958. In the first three sweeps (at ages 7, 11 and 16), the target sample was augmented to include people who migrated to the UK born in the same week. The cross-sectional sample only includes immigrants who moved to Britain before the age of 16, as there were no attempts to include further members beyond the age 16 survey in 1974.

Sample size at recruitment
17,000+

Sample size at most recent sweep
9,137 (2014 - NCDS9)
9,337 with biological samples

Sex
All

Age at recruitment
Birth

Cohort year of birth
1958