Webinar recording and slides

This event took place on Thursday 28 November 2024.

You can download a PDF of the Getting Started slides here.

About the event

What’s covered in the event?

This flagship CLS webinar gives first-time users an insight into four world-leading cohort studies.

These studies follow generations born between 1958 and 2002 and are a powerful resource for addressing a wide range of scientific questions in various social, economic, health, political and geographical sciences. The data are free to download from the UK Data Service.

Attendees will learn about the data collected in each study, possible research topics, how to access and get started with the data and example of the types of analyses that can be undertaken using the following studies:

• 1958 National Child Development Study
• 1970 British Cohort Study
• Next Steps
• Millennium Cohort Study.

Who should attend?

This event is suitable for a wide range of researchers including:

• Postgraduate students (Masters and PhD) interested in using the cohorts for a dissertation or thesis.
• Undergraduate students looking for data resources for their final year dissertation.
• Researchers in academia (particularly early career researchers).
• Researchers in the public or the third sector new to the cohort studies.

Why take part?

• Gain an overview of the type of research topics that the data could offer.
• Find out about the types of analysis that can be performed with the data.
• Learn how the cohort studies could be used in course work or dissertations.
• Discover how to access and get started handling the data.
• Get answers to specific questions about the cohort studies and how to use them.

Webinar presenters

• Vanessa Moulton, Senior Research Associate, Centre for Longitudinal Studies
• Morag Henderson, Professor in Sociology, Centre for Longitudinal Studies
• Richard Silverwood, Associate Professor and Chief Statistician, Centre for Longitudinal Studies

Draft programme

Part 1) Introduction
What are birth cohort studies?
Overview of NCDS, BCS70, Next Steps and MCS
Type of information collected

Part 2) Content by ‘subject area’
Physical health
Mental health
Family and relationships
Education
Economics

Part 3) Examples of the types of analyses that can be undertaken using CLS cohort data
Simple analyses
Confounder control
Repeated measures
Cross-cohort analysis

Part 4) Getting started with the data
Available resources
Accessing the data
Data protocols, structure and merging
Study design and weights
Dealing with attrition
Where to go for more information

Previous attendee endorsements

“Thank you CLS for this excellent intro to using the Centre’s cohort studies! Informative presentations and exciting ideas for research possibilities.”

“Knowledgeable speakers, content wasn’t too advanced/specialist but also general enough to understand.”

“The whole webinar was well structured, all parts were equally good and complemented each other very well.”