COVID-19 survey – the bigger picture

We have come to the end of our journey through the first 50 years of the 1970 British Cohort Study, and now look to the very recent past. Back in May 2020, we launched a survey of the participants of five national longitudinal cohort studies (aged 19-74), including BCS70, to examine the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on their lives. The online survey was repeated twice, in September–October and February–March, to track the effects of COVID-19 over time. Around 30,000 people across all studies took part in at least one of the three surveys. 

This was the first time that study members from all four CLS longitudinal studies (born in 1958, 1970, 1989-90 and 2000-02) were asked to complete the same survey at the same time, giving researchers unprecedented opportunities for cross-cohort comparison. Researchers can analyse the COVID-19 survey data in conjunction with the rich longitudinal data collected over the lifetime of each study, to examine how people’s prior life experiences shape their resilience or vulnerability to the effects of the pandemic.   

Find out more about the COVID-19 Survey and read our initial findings.