DOI: 10.5255/ukda-sn-9413-2
title: National Child Development Study: Sweeps 0-10, 1958-2024: Secure Access
title: National Child Development Study, 1958 - Survey and Biomeasures Data
title: NCDS; Life in Your Early 60s Survey

description: &lt;p&gt;The &lt;span style="font-style: italic;"&gt;National Child Development Study&lt;/span&gt; (NCDS) is a continuing longitudinal study that seeks to follow the lives of all those living in Great Britain who were born in one particular week in 1958. The aim of the study is to improve understanding of the factors affecting human development over the whole lifespan. &lt;br&gt;&lt;br&gt;The NCDS has its origins in the &lt;span style="font-style: italic;"&gt;Perinatal Mortality Survey&lt;/span&gt; (PMS) (the original PMS study is held at the UK Data Archive under SN 2137). This study was sponsored by the National Birthday Trust Fund and designed to examine the social and obstetric factors associated with stillbirth and death in early infancy among the 17,000 children born in England, Scotland and Wales in that one week. Selected data from the PMS form NCDS sweep 0, held alongside NCDS sweeps 1-3, under SN 5565. &lt;br&gt;&lt;span style="font-style: italic;"&gt;&lt;br&gt;Survey and Biomeasures Data (GN 33004):&lt;/span&gt;&lt;br&gt;To date there have been ten attempts to trace all members of the birth cohort in order to monitor their physical, educational and social development. The first three sweeps were carried out by the National Children's Bureau, in 1965, when respondents were aged 7, in 1969, aged 11, and in 1974, aged 16 (these sweeps form NCDS1-3, held together with NCDS0 under SN 5565). The fourth sweep, also carried out by the National Children's Bureau, was conducted in 1981, when respondents were aged 23 (held under SN 5566). In 1985 the NCDS moved to the Social Statistics Research Unit (SSRU) - now known as the Centre for Longitudinal Studies (CLS). The fifth sweep was carried out in 1991, when respondents were aged 33 (held under SN 5567). For the sixth sweep, conducted in 1999-2000, when respondents were aged 42 (NCDS6, held under SN 5578), fieldwork was combined with the 1999-2000 wave of the &lt;span style="font-style: italic;"&gt;1970 Birth Cohort Study&lt;/span&gt; (BCS70), which was also conducted by CLS (and held under GN 33229). The seventh sweep was conducted in 2004-2005 when the respondents were aged 46 (held under SN 5579), the eighth sweep was conducted in 2008-2009 when respondents were aged 50 (held under SN 6137), the ninth sweep was conducted in 2013 when respondents were aged 55 (held under SN 7669), and the tenth sweep was conducted in 2020-24 when the respondents were aged 60-64 (held under SN 9412). &lt;br&gt;&lt;br&gt;A &lt;span style="font-style: italic;"&gt;Secure Access&lt;/span&gt; version of the NCDS is available under SN 9413, containing detailed sensitive variables not available under Safeguarded access (currently only sweep 10 data). Variables include uncommon health conditions (including age at diagnosis), full employment codes and income/finance details, and specific life circumstances (e.g. pregnancy details, year/age of emigration from GB).&lt;br&gt;&lt;br&gt;Four separate datasets covering responses to NCDS over all sweeps are available. &lt;span style="font-style: italic;"&gt;National Child Development Deaths Dataset: Special Licence Access&lt;/span&gt; (SN 7717) covers deaths; &lt;span style="font-style: italic;"&gt;National Child Development Study Response and Outcomes Dataset&lt;/span&gt; (SN 5560) covers all other responses and outcomes; &lt;span style="font-style: italic;"&gt;National Child Development Study: Partnership Histories&lt;/span&gt; (SN 6940) includes data on live-in relationships; and &lt;span style="font-style: italic;"&gt;National Child Development Study: Activity Histories&lt;/span&gt; (SN 6942) covers work and non-work activities. Users are advised to order these studies alongside the other waves of NCDS.&lt;br&gt;&lt;br&gt;From 2002-2004, a Biomedical Survey was completed and is available under Safeguarded Licence (SN 8731) and Special Licence (SL) (SN 5594). Proteomics analyses of blood samples are available under SL SN 9254.&lt;br&gt;&lt;br&gt;&lt;span style="font-style: italic;"&gt;Linked Geographical Data (GN 33497): &lt;br&gt;&lt;/span&gt;A number of geographical variables are available, under more restrictive access conditions, which can be linked to the NCDS EUL and SL access studies. &lt;br&gt;&lt;br&gt;&lt;span style="font-style: italic;"&gt;Linked Administrative Data (GN 33396):&lt;br&gt;&lt;/span&gt;A number of linked administrative datasets are available, under more restrictive access conditions, which can be linked to the NCDS EUL and SL access studies. These include a &lt;span style="font-style: italic;"&gt;Deaths&lt;/span&gt; dataset (SN 7717) available under SL and the &lt;span style="font-style: italic;"&gt;Linked Health Administrative Datasets&lt;/span&gt; (SN 8697) available under Secure Access.&lt;br&gt;&lt;br&gt;&lt;span style="font-style: italic;"&gt;Multi-omics Data and Risk Scores Data (GN 33592)&lt;br&gt;&lt;/span&gt;Proteomics analyses were run on the blood samples collected from NCDS participants in 2002-2004 and are available under SL SN 9254.  Metabolomics analyses were conducted on respondents of sweep 10 and are available under SL SN 9411. Polygenic indices are available under SL SN 9439. Derived summary scores have been created that combine the estimated effects of many different genes on a specific trait or characteristic, such as a person's risk of Alzheimer's disease, asthma, substance abuse, or mental health disorders, for example. These scores can be combined with existing survey data to offer a more nuanced understanding of how cohort members' outcomes may be shaped.&lt;br&gt;&lt;br&gt;&lt;span style="font-style: italic;"&gt;Additional Sub-Studies (GN 33562):&lt;br&gt;&lt;/span&gt;In addition to the main NCDS sweeps, further studies have also been conducted on a range of subjects such as parent migration, unemployment, behavioural studies and respondent essays. The full list of NCDS studies available from the UK Data Service can be found on the &lt;a href="https://beta.ukdataservice.ac.uk/datacatalogue/series/series?id=2000032#!/access-data" target="_blank" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"&gt;NCDS&lt;/a&gt; series access data webpage.&lt;br&gt;&lt;br&gt;&lt;span style="font-style: italic;"&gt;How to access genetic and/or bio-medical sample data from a range of longitudinal surveys:&lt;br&gt;&lt;/span&gt;For information on how to access biomedical data from NCDS that are not held at the UKDS, see the &lt;a href="https://cls.ucl.ac.uk/data-access-training/genetic-data-and-biological-samples/" target="_blank" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"&gt;CLS Genetic data and biological samples&lt;/a&gt; webpage.&lt;br&gt;&lt;br&gt;Further information about the full NCDS series can be found on the &lt;a href="https://cls.ucl.ac.uk/cls-studies/1958-national-child-development-study/" target="_blank" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"&gt;Centre for Longitudinal Studies&lt;/a&gt; website.&lt;br&gt;&lt;br&gt;&lt;/p&gt; 
&lt;p&gt;&lt;span&gt;&lt;span style="font-style: italic;"&gt;SN 9413 - National Child Development Study: Sweeps 0-10, 1958-2024: Secure Access&lt;/span&gt;&lt;br&gt;
&lt;/span&gt;The NCDS Age 62 Survey, (or 'Life in Your Early 60s' Survey as known to study members) was conducted between 2019 and 2024 when participants were aged 61-65 years. This sweep was designed and managed by the Centre for Longitudinal Studies (CLS) at the UCL Social Research Institute. Interviewer fieldwork was conducted by NatCen and Verian (formerly Kantar). Health visits were conducted by NatCen and INUVI. The Age 62 Survey involved an interview, a health visit, two paper self-completion questionnaires and an online dietary questionnaire.&lt;br&gt;&lt;br&gt;The broad aim of the Age 62 Survey was to collect information which would aid the understanding of the lifelong factors affecting retirement and ageing. This survey also had a biomedical focus with physical measurements and assessments being conducted for the first time since the Age 44 biomedical sweep. The data collection built on the extensive data collected previously from birth and across the lifetime of study members and will facilitate comparisons with other generations as they reach the same life stage, allowing for study of social change.&lt;br&gt;&lt;br&gt;The study was initially planned and designed to be conducted in-person. Fieldwork commenced in January 2020 but was subsequently paused in March 2020 due to the COVID-19 pandemic. As in-person interviewing was not feasible until early 2022, the protocol was adapted so that interviews could be conducted by video-call. Interviewer fieldwork restarted by video call in spring 2021 until April 2022 when it was feasible to return to in-person interviewing. The video mode option continued to be available if requested by a cohort member or was required due to interviewer capacity issues in a particular area.&lt;br&gt;&lt;br&gt;Once mainstage fieldwork was complete, those who had not participated were invited to complete a short version of the questionnaire via web (known as the ‘mop-up’ survey). Cohort members who completed the survey between January-March 2020, were also invited to take part in the mop-up survey in order establish how their circumstances might have changed since the pandemic. Emigrants were not invited to take part in the main survey but were invited to take part in this short web-survey.&lt;br&gt;&lt;br&gt;A full account of the survey development and fieldwork procedures can be found in the National Child Development Study technical report and appendices produced by NatCen Social Research, which accompanies this data.&lt;br&gt;&lt;br&gt;Researchers applying for access to the Secure Access NCDS datasets should indicate on their ESRC Accredited Researcher application form the EUL dataset(s) that they also wish to access (selected from the BCS70 Series Access web page).&lt;br&gt;&lt;br&gt;&lt;span style="font-style: italic;"&gt;Latest edition information&lt;br&gt;&lt;/span&gt;For the second edition (October 2025), the Biomeasures dataset has been updated. Two variables related to weight measurement have been moved to the safeguarded dataset.&lt;/p&gt;