ESRA 2025 Preliminary Program

Monday 14 July    Tuesday 15 July    Wednesday 16 July    Thursday 17 July    Friday 18 July   

All time references are in CEST

Children and Youth cohort studies: developments and innovations
Session Organisers	Professor Lisa Calderwood (UCL Centre for Longitudinal Studies) Dr Larissa Pople (UCL Centre for Longitudinal Studies)
Time	Tuesday 15 July, 09:00 - 10:30
Room	Ruppert 040

Longitudinal cohort studies of children and youth are a core part of the survey infrastructure in many countries, and in the light of the COVID-19 pandemic there has been a renewed focus on such studies as vital evidence bases for child and adolescent research including on well-being, education and labour market. However, the broader context of such studies is increasing challenges with ensuring population representativeness, participant engagement and inclusivity, and the need for sufficient analytical power for research about hard-to-reach groups to inform vital policy questions.
This session will cover recent developments and innovations in child and youth cohort studies. This includes study design approaches for newly established child and youth cohorts, as well as developments in existing cohort studies who survey children and young people.
The session aims to showcase recent developments in the research landscape around child and youth cohorts, and to explore survey methodological issues around surveying children and young people.
Submissions are particularly welcomed on:
- design and implementation of new child and youth cohort studies
- developments in existing child and youth cohort studies
- giving children and young people a voice in study design, and participant co-production
- measurement in child and youth cohorts, including questionnaires and direct assessments
- collecting data on sensitive topics from children and young people
- data collection innovations and mode
- inclusivity in child and youth cohort studies
- assessing the reliability and validity of children and young people’s self-reports
- preventing non-response and innovative approaches to participant engagement
- the challenges of retaining young people’s contact and interest in surveys over time
- ethical issues in involving children and young people in surveys, including informed consent and young people’s rights.
- addressing international comparisons and data harmonisation
Submissions need not be restricted to these specific examples.

Keywords: children, youth, cohort studies

Papers

Transitioning to web-first in a cohort study of children in primary education in England

Mr Martin Wood (National Centre for Social Research)
Ms Jules Allen (National Centre for Social Research)
Ms Line Knudsen (National Centre for Social Research) - Presenting Author

The Five to Twelve study is funded by the Department for Education in the UK and follows a cohort of children through their primary school education in England. The study aims to deepen our understanding of how inequalities in educational attainment and wellbeing develop in this period. It is one of a set of cohort studies covering early years to post-16 education.

Data collection for the first year of the study was completed during 2024 with over 8,600 interviews completed in-home with mothers/fathers/carers, alongside a set of cognitive assessments with the child cohort member (aged 5 or 6 at the time). The child’s class teacher was also included, completing a paper questionnaire about the child.

This paper will describe the transition from CAPI to a web and CATI data collection design in Year 2 (aged 6 or 7). Mothers and fathers and carers in the child’s main home were again included, as well as other parents living separately. The child’s teacher was also approached again in this wave.

Data collection for Year 2 will be completed in the first half of 2025 and the paper will discuss approaches to maximising response (communications strategy, incentives, modes) and resulting response patterns (with a particular focus on low-income families and children who had been identified as having special educational needs). It will discuss the considerations for a complex longitudinal study with a web-first design.

The Challenges and Opportunities of Leveraging an Existing Cross-Sectional Survey Infrastructure to Develop a New Child Cohort Study in the United States

Dr Jessica Jones (CDC/ National Center for Health Statistic) - Presenting Author
Dr Anika Schenck-fontaine (LIfBi - Leibniz Institute for Educational Trajectories)
Dr Olivia Sappenfield (Health Resources and Services Administration)
Dr Scott Albrecht (U.S. Census Bureau)
Dr Reem Ghandour (Health Resources and Services Administration)

The National Survey of Children’s Health Longitudinal Cohort (NSCH-LC) is a probability-based, nationally representative study designed to assess the long-term impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic on children throughout the United States. In response to the pandemic, the NSCH-LC expanded upon the existing infrastructure of the cross-sectional National Survey of Children’s Health (NSCH) to create a cohort study that could provide repeated measurement of children's mental, emotional, and behavioral health. Data were collected using parental report both pre-pandemic (2018–2019) as part of the annual NSCH and post-pandemic (2023–2024) on over 20,000 children.

This presentation will outline the design, implementation, and methodological innovations of the NSCH-LC, highlighting the complexities and challenges encountered in transitioning from a cross-sectional to a longitudinal study. Particular attention will be given to the efforts to locate past respondents, address incomplete respondent information, and conduct respondent verification using both web and paper questionnaires. The design and content of the questionnaires will also be described in detail, to include both the selection of repeated measures and pandemic-related variables such as remote learning, disruptions to healthcare access, and family stressors. Lastly, presenters will provide an overview of how attendees can access this data for research.

By sharing this overview of the NSCH-LC design, implementation, and data availability, the presentation will showcase lessons learned from an innovative approach to developing a new longitudinal cohort study of children given limited resources based on existing survey infrastructures and will promote additional research on the long-term effects of the COVID-19 pandemic. This presentation will also demonstrate how federal data infrastructure can be leveraged to assess societal disruptions.

Designing a Web Survey Experience for Adolescents: Lessons Learned From Caregiver And Adolescent Participation In The 2024 Panel Study of Income Dynamics Child Development Supplement Study.

Mr Piotr Dworak (University of Michigan - Institute for Social Research) - Presenting Author

The Child Development Supplement (CDS) is a research component of the Panel Study of Income Dynamics (PSID) collecting information on children and caregivers in families participating in PSID. Approximately every 5 years, CDS interviews primary caregivers and, with their permission, adolescents aged 12-17. In prior waves, adolescents were asked to complete a telephone interview. In 2024, CDS introduced an option for adolescents to complete a Web survey. Some 889 primary caregivers were asked for permission to interview their 1,369 adolescent children and offered Web as an option and for a preferred way to communicate with adolescents (i.e., how to send email and text invitations and reminders to complete the Web survey). This paper focuses on addressing unique logistical challenges related to obtaining permission from the primary caregiver, communicating with adolescents, and meeting requirements of research with minors. We also report caregiver consent rates, the rates of adolescent email and cell phone acquisition, adolescent response rates, and discuss lessons learned.

Updates from the Children of the 2020s birth cohort study: the age 3 interview

Dr Marialivia Bernardi (University College London) - Presenting Author
Dr Laurel Fish (University College London)
Ms Sarah Knibbs (Ipsos)
Professor Alissa Goodman (University College London)
Professor Lisa Calderwood (University College London)
Professor Pasco Fearon (University College London)

Children of the 2020s (COT20s) is a new birth cohort study that will provide evidence on the factors that affect child development and later educational outcomes.
COT20s is a five-wave longitudinal survey of children from nine months to five years with face-to-face surveys at nine months (wave 1) and three years (wave 3). Other waves will use a sequential mixed mode online/telephone design. The target sample size was 8518 at wave 1, aiming for 4142 interviews at wave 5. The study includes an innovative app, BabySteps, enabling collection of developmental and home environment measures in the inter-wave periods, linkage to health and education records, an online survey for a second co-residential parent and/or any own-household parents, and a battery of in-person child development assessments when the children are age 3.
Fieldwork for the wave 3 in-home visit takes place between November 2024 to March 2025. Alongside the typical CAPI-administered survey, this wave of data collection features a host of innovative methodologies including a 5-minute video recording taken on the respondents BabySteps app of the parent and child playing, a set of cognitive assessments administered via the interviewer tablet and a battery of CAPI administered direct assessments with the child, both of which are completed while the primary informant independently completes a CASI questionnaire on their own smart device. Early analysis of wave 3 fieldwork progress indicates good respondent engagement and high completion rates of each of the components of the age 3 visit. Early ongoing quality control monitoring indicate high quality data collection.
This presentation will provide an update on this landmark study with a focus on the design and implementation of the innovative measures implemented in the face-to-face age 3 in-home visit.

Scoping the feasibility of a new longitudinal birth cohort study of children at risk of poor outcomes across the UK

Dr Grace Bailey (Swansea University) - Presenting Author
Professor Lucy Griffiths (Swansea University)

In the UK, an increasing number of children are experiencing adversity, often starting very early on in their lives. These children often need help and protection because of the potential risks to their development or health or are at high risk of becoming looked after by local authorities.

Comprehensive national longitudinal data for children facing high levels of adversity is crucial to being able to explore the ongoing and lifelong impact of early experiences on the health and development of these children. A major roadblock to achieving this is the typical exclusion of such children from the UK’s world-leading portfolio of national longitudinal studies of child development. This is largely due to the multiple challenges researchers face in identifying, sampling, and retaining these participants. When they are included, there is usually little information about which children are involved with social services, what help they are getting, and how effective this is.

We aim to understand stakeholder evidence needs and to test the feasibility of an innovative quantitative longitudinal birth cohort study of children at risk of poor outcomes across the UK. To do this, we will engage with policy and academic stakeholders, as well as with care experienced young people and their parents, to deepen our understanding of scientific and policy evidence needs with respect these young children, and to establish examples of best practice and co-production when involving vulnerable children and their families in longitudinal research.

This project will create a blueprint for a new UK-wide longitudinal birth cohort study of children at risk of poor outcomes. Such a study will fill vital evidence gap to help transform our understanding of the risk and prevention strategies urgently required in child welfare service provision to support some of the most vulnerable members of UK society.

The challenges of conducting longitudinal youth survey in the Gulf region: the case of UAE MEY

Dr Tatiana Karabchuk (UAE University) - Presenting Author
Professor Malina Voicu (Romanian Academy of Sciences, University of Bucharest)

The paper discusses the methodological issues of running the longitudinal survey of youth in the United Arab Emirates as an example of surveys in the Gulf region. The Monitoring of Emirati Youth: Socio-Economic Characteristics and Values is a unique source of information on millennial generation of current Emirati citizens. The survey focuses on happiness and life satisfaction in relation to work, family and values, and uses the outcomes for the relevant social/public policy programs in UAE. The current paper presents the research design of the study and disclose the methodological challenges under the context of rather closed traditional religious society. The research design of the survey is the annual representative panel survey of the Emirati youth aged between 18 and 34 years old, starting in 2017 and following them every year after. The sample was annually enlarged by the new participants to minimize the deterioration of the panel. The survey is representative for the Emirates and all young groups by education level. The total sample comprised of 350 respondents in 2017 and 750 respondents in 2018. The paper discusses the challenges of the instruments development as well as the field data collection challenges, as well as engagement of youth into the survey.