Growing the evidence

NZ’s largest longitudinal study of child development is just a teenager, but already giving back.

- Nicky Pellegrino

By the age of four, about 14% of Kiwi kids meet the criteria for being over-weight or obese, and more than one in eight have never visited a dental professional. Girls are more likely than boys to be immunised against the cancer-causing HPV (human papilloma virus), but more than 45% of mothers with eight-year-olds are undecided about their kids having the vaccine at all. One-fifth of children have experienced at least one hospital stay by the time they are two and ear infections are a common ailment at this age.

We know all this, and a great deal more, thanks to Growing Up in New Zealand, the country’s largest longitudinal study of child development, which is tracking the lives of more than 6000 participants and their families.

Professor Cameron Grant was among the team who founded this University of Auckland project in 2009. The study began when the children were still in utero and is revisiting them every three years to gather information about their health and wellbeing until they are 21.

The aim was to have an ethnically and socioeconomically diverse cohort, says Grant, who also works as a paediatrician at Starship Children’s Hospital.

He recalls the challenge of recruiting enough families. “We used the traditional strategies of approaching through lead maternity carers but we also thought about other places that pregnant women might go, like hairdressers, which didn’t work too well, and preschools. Having a stall in a shopping mall turned out to be very effective.”