Call for Abstracts: International Conference on Child Cohort Studies

CLS is organising an international conference in St. Catherine’s College, Oxford, from 12 to 14 September 2006. The deadline for submission of abstracts is 14th October 2005.

The Centre for Longitudinal Studies, which is responsible for the UK Millennium Birth Cohort Study and the British Birth Cohorts of 1958 and 1970 is organising an international conference in St. Catherine’s College, Oxford, from 12 to 14 September 2006 about the international experience of large scale birth cohort studies started around the turn of the century. By this we have in mind studies whose subjects are born within a decade either side of the year 2000, and who have so far only been observed as children.

The object of the conference is to promote communication and comparison between those designing, conducting and analysing such surveys in different countries. We are investigating the possibility of publishing the conference proceedings as a special issue of a refereed journal, or as a book.

We would like to invite you to submit an abstract for a paper, which may be presented in the form of an oral presentation or a designated poster session during the conference. The deadline for the submission of abstracts is Friday 14th October 2005. All submissions must conform with the abstract content guidelines summarised below and on the Abstract Submission Form.

We are looking for papers under the following headings, but are open to other suggestions:

1. An in-depth description of study design and considerations behind it.
2. Issues about recruitment; attrition; add-ons of qualitative or administrative data; access to data.
3. Findings – Various topics, e.g. Infant Health, Early School, Family Structure, Poverty, Neighbourhoods.
4. Comparisons of findings from more than one country.

Abstract content guidelines

You may wish to include in your abstract: the year(s)/date of birth of the cohort(s); country of origin; funding; initial sample design; number of surveys undertaken to date and ages of children at each survey; instruments used; achieved sample and response rate at each sweep; plans for future surveys.

All abstracts will be reviewed by members of the Conference Committee. We aim to inform authors whether abstracts have been accepted by Wednesday 30th November 2005. If no answer has been received by then please email Rosemary Creeser (r.creeser@ioe.ac.uk) for confirmation.

Submitting an abstract does not constitute registration for the conference. Abstract presenters must register to attend the meeting. (Details will be circulated in due course).

We look forward to receiving your abstracts and to meeting you all at the conference in September 2006.