The National Longitudinal Study of Children in Ireland, announced last week by Minister for Children Brian Lenihan is the start of a lengthy and important project that is likely to produce results of profound importance to Irish society. The outcome will certainly provide much food for thought - and debate - among social scientists, policy makers and politicians. And, if the pattern that has emerged from similar studies elsewhere holds true for this society, some data is likely to make for uncomfortable reading.
A longitudinal study involves surveying the same group of individuals at different points in time, over a considerable period, usually measured in years. The technique has become increasingly important to social scientists because researchers can monitor change at an individual as well as a group level. For that reason, the technique has grown in popularity in recent decades and data from such surveys has begun sharply to define socio-political debate.
The Irish survey announced by Mr Lenihan fulfils a commitment in the Programme for Government. It should have started earlier but for problems with a tender proposal in 2004. The study will involve monitoring some 18,000 children for up to two decades. In the first phase, which will last seven years, researchers will track the progress of 10,000 nine-month-olds and 8,000 nine-year-olds for the following seven years of their lives. What researchers hope to find out is what are the factors that help children do well in life and keep them safe. They want also to establish what helps keep teenagers at school and what prompts others to embrace anti-social behaviour. Part of the survey will also record the quality of food children eat from an early stage in their lives and the state of their health in later years. The first results from the survey should be available in less than two years but the body of research will grow in value and significance over further years.
Similar research on families elsewhere, in Britain and the United States for example, has produced data that has impacted strongly on social and political debate there. It has been shown, for instance, that children from broken homes are less happy and less adapted to cope with life, compared to children who are reared in stable, traditional family backgrounds by their mother and father. Such studies are now used in arguments about marital breakdown. We should not be afraid of where longitudinal studies will lead us or seek to stifle debate. Rather, we should open our minds to consider what is in the best interests of society.