2000 stories: The next generation
About the study
In 2006, we received additional funding from The National Health and Medical Research Council (NHMRC) to extend the 2000 stories study to examine health and wellbeing across generations. The aim of this study is to identify factors prior to conception that will predict who is at risk of having a premature or low birth weight baby, as well as mothers that are likely to have trouble with post natal depression. It will also inform us about the struggles and demands on today’s parents. To the best of our knowledge, this is the only study anywhere in the world attempting to identify preconception predictors of these early life outcomes.
Benefits of the study
2000 stories: the next generation is an internationally significant study. It will be one of the first longitudinal studies of childhood psychosocial development to be embedded within an existing longitudinal study of parent psychosocial development. The study will offer a vastly improved understanding of the processes that might influence many aspects of health and adjustment across generations.
How pregnancies are identified
The cohort participants are contacted every six months to update their contact details and advise of any new pregnancies or children we do not know about. Initially, this was conducted by telephone, however, in June 2009 we asked our participants to complete an online form. For those with mobile phones we hope to use a simple SMS query.
What are participants asked to do?
Information is sent out about the study to participants and consent is requested to take part in the study. The mother of the child will complete a pre-birth interview, another interview when the baby is approximately eight weeks old and a further interview at the baby’s first birthday. Fathers and partners complete a postal interview, or in some instances the interview is conducted by telephone.
Recruitment to date
To date, approximately 805 children have been born or are expected to be born to our participants, with 357 of these children born before we commenced the study. Since the study began, 448 children were identified before their first birthday and 283 of these before birth. More than likely this is an underestimation of the total number of children born to our cohort participants.