About the project

This project will investigate the associations between early life SES trajectories and health and wellbeing outcomes collected when the cohort participants were approximately twelve years old. The analyses will apply a life course approach to how exposures to differential patterns of accumulation and clustering of disadvantage (measured in multiple ways) relate to wellbeing outcomes when the cohort are adolescents.

This project will build on the work previously undertaken for the two Vulnerability reports (Morton et al.) in 2014-2015 which considered how differential patterns of exposure to cumulative disadvantage during the first 1000 days of life was associated with health and wellbeing outcomes when the children were 4.5 years old and ready to start formal schooling. This work in the pre-school period also contributed to what systemic factors shaped resilience to poor outcomes for children in families who were experiencing significant cumulative disadvantage, as reported to the SWA and DPMC in 2022 (Morton et al).

The analyses will provide greater insights into what individual, family, community and environmental factors in early life and in childhood shape health and wellbeing outcomes for New Zealand adolescents. The aim of our study is to identify and explore both vulnerability and resilience experienced by the older children and compare the factors that contribute to these in adolesence with those described in the first 2000 days of life (as above).

The longitudinal approach will help determine whether there are differential outcomes for some children and their families who experience differential early life exposures, and what the subsequent gaps are in wellbeing during the transition from late childhood to early adolescence. The analyses will seek to understand what works to mitigate the impact of early life disadvantage and inform further strategies that can be used to better support children and their families in early life so they can thrive and achieve.

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Start date: 16/04/2024

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