News & Publications

Launch of Growing Up in Ireland - "How Families Matter for Social and Emotional Outcomes of 9-year -old Children”

8th March 2012

Growing Up in Ireland - National Longitudinal Study of Children will launch the report How Families Matter for Social and Emotional Outcomes of 9-year -old Children, by Elizabeth Nixon, on Thursday 8 March 2012.

Further details will be available nearer the time.

Launch of Growing Up in Ireland – Influences on 9-Year-Olds’ Learning: Home, School and Community

Thursday 26th January, 2012

The report Growing Up in Ireland – Influences on 9-Year-Olds’ Learning: Home, School and Community was launched jointly by Ms. Frances Fitzgerald T.D., Minister for Children and Youth Affairs, and Mr. Ruairi Quinn T.D., Minister for Education and Skills, on Thursday 26th January.

Using data from the first wave of the 9-year-old cohort of the Growing Up in Ireland, this report looks at children’s out-of-school activities and how these relate to the domains of family, school and neighbourhood. The report provides new information on the types of recreational activities engaged in by nine-year-old children and explores the relationship between their out-of-school lives and their academic performance at school. Policy implications are also discussed.  A copy of the report is available to download using the link below.

Influences on 9-Year-Olds' Learning Size: 4.2M bytes

Questionnaires

Child and Infant Cohort Questionnaires

The questionnaires used in Wave 1 of the child cohort (9 years) and the infant cohort (9 months), and accompanying technical reports, are now available on the Links for Researchers page.

Third Growing Up in Ireland Research Conference

Thursday 1st December 2011

Growing Up in Ireland – the National Longitudinal Study of Children , held its third annual research conference on Thursday 1^st December 2011 at the D4 Berkeley Hotel, Dublin. The conference focussed on research based on Growing Up in Ireland (GUI) data.

The conference was opened by Ms Frances Fitzgerald T.D., Minister for Children and Youth Affairs, who launched some Key Findings from the recently completed 3-year cohort as well as some of the first longitudinal findings from the study.  These key findings can be accessed here.

Keynote Speaker

Professor Edward Melhuish is Professor of Human Development at Birkbeck, University of London and Visiting Professorial Fellow at the Institute of Education, University of London. He is an internationally recognised expert in the study of child development and childcare and has extensive experience with longitudinal studies. His research interests include child development, parenting, childcare and early education.

For several years Professor Melhuish has been a Principal Investigator on the Effective Provision of Pre-school Education (EPPE) and Effective Pre-school Provision in Northern Ireland (EPPNI) projects based in England and Northern Ireland, which are following 4,000 children from 3-7 years of age. These studies are investigating the effects of family, community, and pre-school experiences (and their interaction) on child development.

Professor Melhuish is also Executive Director of the National Evaluation of Sure Start and his work undertaken to date has addressed many issues relevant to Sure Start including cognitive, language and behavioural development of young children and the role of family factors, home environment, childcare and pre-school experience upon children's development.

Professor Melhuish has written reports for government departments, policy makers, practitioners and academic researchers. He has over 150 scientific papers, chapters and books, some of which have been translated in up to 8 languages.

Conference Presentations

Approximately 24 papers were presented at the conference, by researchers from a wide range of third level and research institutions. These were based on Growing Up in Ireland’s Child and Infant Cohorts and focussed on a range of topics including health, parenting, education and childcare.  The Book of Abstracts for the conference is available to download using the link below.  Copies of the presentations given on the day are available using this link. 

Download Conference 2011 Brochure Size: 276.0K bytes

Download Conference 2011 Book of Abstracts Size: 1.2M bytes

Overweight and Obesity Among 9-Year-Olds

Report Launched 9th November

On Wednesday 9th November, Growing Up in Ireland  launched the latest report from the study, Growing Up in Ireland - Overweight and Obesity Among 9-Year-Olds.

The report was launched jointly by the Minister for Children and Youth Affairs, Ms. Frances Fitzgerald, T.D. and the Minister for Health, Dr. James Reilly T.D.  It is the first in a series of Growing Up in Ireland research reports based on data from Wave 1 of the Child Cohort (at 9 years). In light of the significant increase in the prevalence of overweight and obesity among children and adolescence in Ireland in recent decades, the report examines levels among nine-year-old children and the factors associated with it. These include child and parental recognition, child self-concept and influence of local food environment. Policy implications are also discussed.  See below for links to copies of the report. 

Key Findings include:

• 26% of nine-year-old children were found to have a body mass index (BMI) that was outside of the ‘healthy’ range. Of these, 19% were defined as overweight and 7% obese.
• Girls were significantly more likely to be overweight (22% v 19%) or obese (8% v 5%) than boys.
• Children from unskilled manual working class households were significantly more likely to be overweight and obese (boys: 29%; girls: 38%) than their peers from professional households (boys: 19%; girls: 18%)
• Parents and children were poor at recognising child overweight and obesity: Over half (54%) of parents of overweight children and 20% of parents of obese children reported that their child was ‘about the right weight’ for their height.
• Four out of five children measured as overweight perceived themselves to be ‘about the right weight’ (78%). This fell to three in five (60%) among children measured as obese.
• Mother’s who were overweight themselves were less likely to recognise that their child was overweight.
• International comparisons suggest that the prevalence of overweight and obesity in Ireland is higher than in Northern European countries, similar to Great Britain but less than in Southern European countries of Spain, Italy and Greece.
• Parents report that 74% of boys and 67% of girls did 20 minutes of light exercise on 9+ days in the last two weeks. This falls to 63% of boys and 47% of girls for hard exercise.
• 11% of children watch television for three or more hours on an average weekday.
• Low levels of physical exercise and high levels of sedentary activities are both associated with a higher risk of overweight and obesity.  Boys doing 20+ minutes hard exercise on less than 3 days in the last two weeks were 3.6 times more likely to be obese than boys doing hard exercise on 9+ days. The figure was 3.2 for girls.
• Boys watching TV for 3+ hours on an average school night were  4.2 times more likely to be obese than boys watching less than an hour of TV on average. Girls watching 3+ hours of TV were 1.75 times more likely to be obese.
• The availability of food in the local area may have a significant association with the quality of children’s diets. Controlling for other factors, the further parents have to travel to purchase food, the lower the quality of the child’s diet. 
• Childhood overweight is associated with significantly lower self-esteem around physical appearance and popularity and worse emotional and behavioural problems.

Overweight and Obesity in 9-Year-Olds: Main Report Size: 3.7M bytes

Overweight and Obesity in 9-Year-Olds: Executive Summary Size: 278.3K bytes

Launch Of 9-Year Qualitative Report and Archive

The Growing Up in Ireland launch of the Qualitative Key Findings from the Child Cohort by the Minister for Children and Youth Affairs, Frances Fitzgerald, T.D. took place on Thursday, 22^nd September, at the Long Room Hub, TCD.  The event also marked the archiving and availability to researchers of the Anonymised Qualitative Data from Wave 1 of the Child Cohort now lodged in the Irish Qualitative Data Archive (IQDA).  Links to the key findings and main reports are provided below. 

This latest research from Growing Up in Ireland draws on in-depth qualitative interviews conducted with 120 nine-year-old children and their parents. These families are participating in, and were selected from, the larger Growing Up in Ireland quantitative study which is tracking the lives of 8,500 nine-year-old children.

About IQDA

The Irish Qualitative Data Archive (IQDA) is a central access point for qualitative social science data; interviews, pictures and other non-numerical material. This national programme for archiving qualitative data is a valuable tool for both the research community and the public record. The archive provides online access to all new qualitative data generated within the Irish Social Science Platform, and to selected existing data.

The IQDA has established protocols to ensure that newly generated qualitative data are documented and stored in ways that facilitate sharing and re-use through online access. IQDA is currently funded as part of the Irish Social Science Platform by the Higher Education Authority under the national Programme for Research in Third Level Institutions (Cycle 4).

9-Year Qualitative Key Finding No 1: Families Size: 882.5K bytes

9-Year Qualitative Key Finding No 2: Health and Well-Being Size: 1.0M bytes

9-Year Qualitative Key Finding No 3: Expectations Size: 1.1M bytes

9-Year Qualitative Main Report Size: 6.1M bytes

EUCCONET 'Surveying Children' Workshop

Presentations now available

Growing Up in Ireland hosted a EUCCONET workshop on the subject of surveying children in the ESRI last May.   Researchers working on a number of longitudinal child cohort studies around the world presented on their individual experiences of collecting survey data from children and young people.  You can view these presentations using this link.

Data from Wave 1 of Infant Cohort archived

Growing Up in Ireland would like to announce that the Anonymised Microdata File (AMF) from Wave 1 of the Infant Cohort (at 9 months) is now available from the Irish Social Science Data Archive (ISSDA) www.ucd.ie/issda/ 

This initial dataset includes anonymised details on 11,000 nine-month-old infants born between 1^st December 2007 and the 30^th June 2008, along with those of their parents/guardians. Data collection for this group took place between September 2008 and April 2009.

The Anonymised Microdata File (AMF) provides many of the key variables from Wave 1 of the Infant Cohort and has been prepared in such a way as to protect the anonymity of all participants. The datafile is accompanied by a set of documents describing the data, their structure and content. 

Accessing the Data

Potential users wishing to access the anonymised data should apply to the Irish Social Science Data Archive (ISSDA) at www.ucd.ie/issda/ The information contained on the file can be used for statistical purposes only – to use it for any other purpose would be an offence, under the Statistics Act, 1993.

Data Workshops

Those interested in attending a Growing Up in Ireland Data Workshop should contact guiworkshop@esri.ie.  Two workshops on the Infant Cohort Data were held in June and July 2011 and any subsequent workshops will be scheduled in response to demand. 

The Irish Social Science Data Archive (ISSDA) is located in University College , Dublin . It holds a range of data from surveys and official statistics (such as the Census) and makes them readily available to users in the academic, public and commercial sectors.  More details on ISSDA are available at www.ucd.ie/issda/

First Report on Infant Cohort

Minister launches first results from the 9-month-olds

The Minister for Children and Youth Affairs, Barry Andrews TD, launched the first report on the Infant Cohort (Aged 9 months) at a conference in Dublin on November 29th, 2010. The full report and the executive summary can be dowloaded using the links below.

The Infants and their Families (full report) Size: 9.5M bytes

The Infants and their Families (executive summary) Size: 2.8M bytes

Growing Up in Ireland Research Conference

Dublin, November 29th

Conference 2010 Brochure Size: 386.7K bytes

Growing Up in Ireland 9-Year Data Now Available

Anonymised Microdata File (AMF) Archived

Launch of First Research Report

First report on 9-year cohort now available

The first detailed report on the 9-year cohort was launched by Mr Barry Andrews T.D., the Minister for Children and Youth Affairs at the inaugural Growing Up in Ireland Research Conference on December 7th 2009.  The full-length report and an executive summary are available to download in pdf using the links below.  Copies of the presentations made by Growing Up in Ireland staff as well as the invited speakers (Professor Sir Michael Rutter, Professor John Bynner and Dr Satya Brink) are also available to download by following this link.

9-year Executive Summary Size: 2.2M bytes

9-year Full Report Size: 11.3M bytes

Launch of Key Findings

First results from 9-Year Cohort

Four sets of key findings from the first wave of the child cohort (age 9 years) were launched on Friday 10th July 2009. Use the links below to go directly to the publications.

Being 9 Years Old Size: 989.4K bytes

The Families of 9-Year-Olds Size: 1.1M bytes

The Education of 9-Year-Olds Size: 1.0M bytes

The Health of 9-Year-Olds Size: 1.1M bytes

GUI Bulletins/Newletters

Back issues of the bulletins and newsletters issued to participating families are available below.

GUI Bulletin No.1 Size: 1.1M bytes

GUI Bulletin No. 2 Size: 1.2M bytes

GUI Bulletin No 3 Size: 678.5K bytes

Children's Newsletter No 1 Size: 1.5M bytes