Growing up Healthy in Families Across the Globe: Cross-Cultural Harmonisation of Childhood Risk-Factors Using Longitudinal Studies from Ireland, Scotland and New Zealand

The Growing Up Healthy in Families Across the Globe project is an international collaboration examining the potential for harmonised analysis using five longitudinal studies (from New Zealand, Ireland and Scotland). All five studies follow the lives of children, are interested in the dynamics of family change and work to inform policy to potentially improve population well-being across the life-course. Comparative analysis from harmonised longitudinal studies, where change over time is emphasised, provides a unique view to determine how and why environments change, which environments are supportive and which are not. This paper discusses the challenges and tasks involved when preparing and conducting harmonised analysis, and initial findings from the Growing Up Healthy project are discussed. The studies were, from New Zealand, Te Hoe Nuku Roa, the Pacific Island Families Study and Growing Up in New Zealand, and from Scotland and Ireland Growing Up in Scotland and Growing Up in Ireland. Post hoc data harmonisation of measures resulted in the identification of several closely aligned variables. The harmonised descriptive variables from the five studies highlight many similarities across the studies. A risk factor model to predict child development outcomes (using the Strengths and Difficulties Questionnaire) was developed and resulted in very similar patterns of risk in New Zealand, Ireland and Scotland. Risks included: maternal relationship status, maternal education, smoking in pregnancy, maternal self-reported health and maternal long-standing illness. The insights will be of interest to all those concerned with child development in contemporary New Zealand, Ireland, Scotland and other similar countries.