DOI: 10.5255/ukda-sn-3535-5
title: 1970 British Cohort Study: Age 16, Sweep 4, 1986
title: 1970 British Cohort Study – Survey and Biomeasures Data
title: BCS70; Youthscan

description: &lt;p&gt;The &lt;em&gt;1970 British Cohort Study&lt;/em&gt; (BCS70) began in 1970 when data were collected about the births and families of babies born in the United Kingdom in one particular week in 1970. Since then, there have been nine further full data collection exercises in order to monitor the cohort members' health, education, social and economic circumstances. These took place when respondents were aged 5 in 1975, aged 10 in 1980, aged 16 in 1986, aged 26 in 1996, aged 30 in 1999-2000 (SN 5558), aged 34 in 2004-2005, aged 42 in 2012 and aged 46 in 2016-18. A range of sub-sample and supplementary surveys have also been conducted, and a separate dataset covering response to BCS70 over all waves is available under SN 5641, &lt;em&gt;1970 British Cohort Study Response Dataset, 1970-2012.&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt; &lt;p&gt;Further information about the BCS70 and may be found on the &lt;a title="Centre for Longitudinal Studies" href="http://www.cls.ioe.ac.uk/"&gt;Centre for Longitudinal Studies&lt;/a&gt; website. As well as BCS70, the CLS now also conducts the NCDS series. &lt;br&gt; &lt;br&gt; &lt;em&gt;How to access genetic and/or bio-medical sample data from a range of longitudinal surveys:&lt;/em&gt;&lt;br&gt; A useful overview of the governance routes for applying for genetic and bio-medical sample data, which are not available through the UK Data Service, can be found at &lt;a title="Governance of data and sample access" href="http://www.metadac.ac.uk/data-access-through-metadac/"&gt;Governance of data and sample access&lt;/a&gt; on the METADAC (Managing Ethico-social, Technical and Administrative issues in Data Access) website.&lt;/p&gt; &lt;span style="font-style: italic;"&gt;1970 British Cohort Study: Age 16, Sweep 4, 1986&lt;/span&gt;&lt;br&gt; The purpose of the 16-year follow-up was to review and evaluate adolescent (mid-teenage) health, care, education, social and family environment throughout Great Britain, as experienced by the BCS70 cohort. At the same time, a parallel survey was also conducted with head teachers of schools likely to be attended by cohort members. The main impetus behind this was to find out more about these schools, especially as many of the cohort members were about to leave full-time education. The head teacher questionnaires were not able to be keyed, documented and deposited at the time of the survey due to lack of resources, but funding finally became available in 2004/5 to complete this task at CLS. The resulting dataset is archived under SN 5225.&lt;br&gt; &lt;br&gt; &lt;i&gt;October 2017 - new derived variable BD4TYPE added to derived file:&lt;/i&gt;&lt;br&gt; During October 2017, a new variable BD4TYPE, detailing 'School Type Age 16 (derived from STYPE, B9SC16TP and 1986 School Census)', was added to the derived variables file bcs4derived. The documentation has been updated accordingly.&lt;br&gt;&lt;br&gt;&lt;span style="font-style: italic;"&gt;Latest edition information&lt;/span&gt;&lt;br&gt; For the eighth edition (November 2019), the variable f57_tot ("Total units of alcohol") has been replaced with a corrected version.