Director's report

Interest in human capital and capability formation focuses attention on the relationships between outcomes in adulthood and experiences in infancy, childhood and adolescence. Most countries in the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) have commissioned large-scale, national longitudinal studies to provide solid evidence on children's progress in order to inform a range of policy priorities. Widening gaps in the development, health and wellbeing of children are of concern and understanding of the reasons for these is still limited. Increasing levels of childhood obesity, depression and anxiety, and learning and behavioural problems, are concerning. Addressing such concerns requires information both about the pathways that lead to adverse outcomes as well as the factors that protect children and promote their development, health and wellbeing.

Longitudinal studies can also cast light on the diversity of ways in which children's relationships and environments affect their prospects and progress. Societies differ in their cultural, environmental, economic, and social contexts and different systems have evolved for care, education, health and family support. Longitudinal studies such as Growing up in Australia: the Longitudinal Study of Australian Children (LSAC) provide valuable information to tailor policy and practice to the particular realities of life in contemporary Australia.

LSAC does this by capturing the rich diversity of the children's lives. As such, it addresses many questions about children's development based on its large, representative sample and the perspective of multiple reporters--mothers and fathers, carers and educators as well as the children themselves. High sample retention, equal if not better to similar studies in other countries, strengthens the validity of the data. Novel and engaging methods are used to collect data from parents and children including using computers (with headphones for children) to answer survey questions in the forthcoming wave. Collection of information on how children use their time is another unique feature of the study.

The team working on LSAC values links with other national longitudinal studies, such as the Millennium Cohort Study in the United Kingdom, the French Longitudinal Study of Children, and the Mother and Baby Study in Norway. The French study is closely linked with that country's census data. Conducted by the Institute of Public Health, the Norwegian study has a major focus on the collection of biomedical data from a sample of over 100,000 infants and their mothers and fathers. These cross-national links offer important collaborative research possibilities, including sharing knowledge of design, instruments and methodologies.

Harmonisation of the data, across national longitudinal studies, is also an increasingly valuable resource for comparative analysis of the similarities and differences in the development of children and how these relate to their family, community and societal contexts. Researchers at the OECD, for example, are increasingly interested in the possibilities for harmonising longitudinal data across national studies as a complement to their comparative work based on administrative data sets.

Conducted in a partnership between the Department of Families, Housing, Community Services and Indigenous Affairs, the Australian Bureau of Statistics and the Australian Institute of Family Studies, LSAC benefits greatly from the advice to the Institute on design and methodology from a consortium of leading scientists, from universities and research centres around Australia. Professor Stephen Zubrick chairs the Consortium Advisory Group, while Professor Ann Sanson is the Chief Scientific Advisor for the study.

LSAC is an excellent example of the value of researchers and policy makers working together to collect information that informs policy, enhances practice and advances scientific understanding. Like the children involved, with each year, LSAC becomes a more mature, richly developed resource. The use of the data increases and its findings are proving an invaluable source of information for child and family policy development.

Professor Alan Hayes
Director
Australian Institute of Family Studies