Explore the data 
Access the main survey data 
George Ploubidis
Professor of Population Health and Statistics and Principal Investigator of the National Child Development Study and 1970 British Cohort Study
Email: g.ploubidis@ucl.ac.uk
On this page:
The 1958 National Child Development Study (NCDS) is following the lives of an initial 17,415 people born in England, Scotland and Wales in a single week of 1958. The study started in 1958 at birth as the Perinatal Mortality Survey. It has tracked topics such as physical and mental health, cognitive ability, social and economic status across the life course.
NCDS is core funded by the Economic and Social Research Council.
If you are an NCDS participant, please visit the NCDS website.
Data are available from 11 main sweeps of NCDS. Data from the latest sweep, at age 62, will be available to researchers from summer 2025. Click on a sweep below for full details, questionnaires and other documentation.
Open scientific consultation
Scientific consultation: NCDS at 68 and BCS70 at 56
CLS is seeking views on the content of the next NCDS and BCS70 sweeps from experts across the scientific, policy, third, and private sectors. This is an excellent opportunity to ensure the data are fit for purpose to answer key scientific and policy questions about ageing and other issues facing these generations.
Introduction to NCDS
This webinar gives an overview of the 1958 National Child Development Study. It highlights the wide range of rich data collected over six decades, freely available to researchers.
Runtime 1:23:36
NCDS is a birth cohort study. It follows the lives of all people born in England, Scotland and Wales in one particular week of March 1958. The birth sweep collected information about 17,415 babies – 98 per cent of all the births in Great Britain that week.
At ages seven, 11 and 16, the sample was augmented with those who had been born overseas in the relevant week and had subsequently moved to Great Britain. This resulted in a total sample of 18,558 cohort members.
Cohort profile
Power, C. and Elliott, J. (2006). ‘Cohort Profile: 1958 British birth cohort (National Child Development Study)’. International Journal of Epidemiology, 35(1), 34-41s, doi: 10.1093/ije/dyi183.
Response and missingness
Find out more about the level of response for every major NCDS sweep, predictors of non-response and how to handle missing data.
Explore the data
Find a range of tools and resources to help you explore NCDS data at each sweep.
Access the main survey data
Most NCDS data are available for free via the UK Data Service [SN 20000032].
Access specialised data
Some specialised data are available from other public data depositories or directly from CLS.
CLS provides expert training for NCDS data users of all experience levels. Check out all the webinars available on our YouTube channel.
Examining ageing in the British cohort studies: measurement, research and access (2024)
This webinar describes data on ageing and key life-course transitions using CLS cohort studies, and highlights future research opportunities.
Runtime 51:04
Cross-cohort comparative analysis in the British cohort studies (2024)
This webinar discusses the challenges of cross-cohort comparative research and possible solutions.
Runtime 39:36
Introduction to longitudinal data: structure and visualisation (2023)
Get an overview of the tools and strategies available to manage and visualise CLS cohort study data.
Runtime 1:54:37
Cognitive measures
NCDS has tracked cognitive ability and function across the life course. Find out more in CLOSER’s guide to the cognitive measures in NCDS and four other cohort studies.
Covid-19 surveys
Data are available from three surveys carried out during the pandemic with NCDS and four other cohort studies.
Genetic data and biological samples
Genotyped data from over 6,000 cohort members, obtained from biological samples collected at age 44, are available for research.
Geospatial data
A range of geospatial data can be linked to NCDS survey data using cohort members’ location information. Examples include data on local amenities, such as green space or fast food restaurants, and information on pollution and the weather.
Linked health data
Researchers can access linked administrative health data and NCDS survey data. These include Hospital Episode Statistics and information from Scottish Medical Records.
In addition to the main NCDS sweeps, there have been a number of substudies:
George Ploubidis
Professor of Population Health and Statistics and Principal Investigator of the National Child Development Study and 1970 British Cohort Study
Email: g.ploubidis@ucl.ac.uk
George is Professor of Population Health and Statistics at the UCL Social Research Institute and currently holds the posts of Principal Investigator of the National Child Development Study and 1970 British Cohort Study at the Centre for Longitudinal Studies. Prior to joining UCL he held posts at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine and the University of Cambridge. George is a multidisciplinary quantitative social scientist and a longitudinal population surveys methodologist. His main research interests relate to socioeconomic and demographic determinants of health over the life course and the mechanisms that underlie generational differences in health and mortality. His methodological work in longitudinal surveys focusses on applications for handling missing data, causal inference and measurement error.
Centre for Longitudinal Studies
UCL Social Research Institute
20 Bedford Way
London WC1H 0AL
Email: clsdata@ucl.ac.uk
