Harmonised Asthma in the National Child Development Study, 1970 British Cohort Study, Next Steps and Millennium Cohort Study, 1965-2024

<p>The <span style="font-style: italic;">Harmonised Data in Five National Longitudinal Cohort Studies</span> project, supported by the Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC), brings together data from five British cohort studies: the <span style="font-style: italic;">1946 National Survey of Health and Development (NSHD)</span>, the <span style="font-style: italic;">1958 National Child Development Survey</span> <span style="font-style: italic;">(NCDS)</span>, the <span style="font-style: italic;">1970 British Cohort Study (BCS70)</span>, <span style="font-style: italic;">Next Steps </span>(formerly the <span style="font-style: italic;">Longitudinal Study of Young People in England</span>), and the <span style="font-style: italic;">Millennium Cohort Study (MCS)</span>. NCDS, BCS70, Next Steps, and MCS receive core funding from the ESRC and are hosted by the Centre for Longitudinal Studies at UCL. NSHD is funded by the Medical Research Council (MRC) and is hosted by the Unit for Lifelong Health and Ageing at UCL.</p> <p>The Asthma Harmonisation project aimed to document all self-reported measures related to asthma in these five British cohort studies and produce harmonised indicators of self-reported asthma through retrospective harmonisation. This harmonisation serves two primary purposes: improving the measurement of asthma (as an outcome, predictor, or control variable) within cohort analyses, and facilitating cross-cohort research on asthma using these rich datasets.<br><br>Separate longitudinal datasets were created for each cohort, focusing on self-reported data and some measures derived from doctors' reports and medical records. Biomarkers and linked health data were not included. Focus was given to measures that were administered to entire cohorts only and on the asthma status of cohort members themselves (not their parents).<br><br>Harmonised asthma data for the MRC National Survey of Health and Development are available under Special Licence from SN 9420.</p>