Children's Health IssuesWhat Research Questions Should the Next Generation of Birth Cohort Studies Address? An International Delphi Study of Experts
Section snippets
Sample
Purposive sampling was used to identify suitable candidates for the expert panel. Evidence for Better Lives (EBLS) consortium members were consulted and invited to suggest individuals they believed would be suitable for participation. The EBLS consortium is a group of 15 academics from the United Kingdom and low- and middle-income countries (LMIC) who form the leadership of on an 8-site BCS with sites in Jamaica, Vietnam, Ghana, Romania, Philippines, Sri Lanka, South Africa, and Pakistan. A
Panel Members
Panel sizes of 15 to 30 are considered optimal for Delphi surveys14 and the current study recruited between 17 and 21 (Round I [N = 17]; Round II [N = 21]; Round III [N = 18]) experts from the 24 who initially expressed interest. Table 1 provides a detailed overview of the samples across the three rounds (Table 1) and indicates demographic and research profile diversity. For example, 17 experts (8 males; mean age = 59.12, standard deviation = 9.92; 15 senior academics and 2 clinicians) from 10
Discussion
To the best of our knowledge, this is the first Delphi study to identify key research priorities for the next generation of BCS, using opinions from an interdisciplinary expert panel. Consensus-achieving questions that were rated as high priority spanned several topics, including: the role of the child's family; social adversity; identifying targets for intervention strategies; and the intergenerational transmission of disadvantage.
Most of the consensus-achieving and high-rated questions have
Conclusions
Our study is the first Delphi to identify the key questions that future BCS should address, using the opinion of experts from both HIC and LMIC. It is hoped the findings from this study will be utilized by researchers to help develop a priori research questions and hypotheses when designing new BCS, and new waves and substudies of existing BCS. The expert panel prioritized research questions that, while having been previously investigated in BCS, remain important and incompletely understood.
Acknowledgments
We are grateful to the University of Edinburgh College of Arts, Humanities and Social Sciences SFA ODA Global Challenges Fund for funding the current research. In addition, we are grateful to Dr Charlotte Hanlon, Dr Jena Hamadani, Professor Edmund Sonuga-Barke, Professor Guenther Fink, Dr Inácio Crochmore, Professor Jane Fisher, Professor Lynne Murray, Professor Kathy Sylva, Dr Santiago Cueto, Professor Theresa Betancourt, and the other anonymous experts who formed our expert panel.
Financial
References (43)
- et al.
Disaggregating asthma: big investigation versus big data
J Allergy Clin Immunol
(2017) - et al.
Association between maternal age at childbirth and child and adult outcomes in the offspring: a prospective study in five low-income and middle-income countries (COHORTS collaboration)
Lancet Glob Health
(2015) - et al.
Delphi methodology in health research: how to do it?
Eur J Integr Med
(2015) - et al.
Optimal number of response categories in rating scales: reliability, validity, discriminating power, and respondent preferences
Acta Psychol (Amst)
(2000) - et al.
Perspectives on postural control dysfunction to inform future research: a Delphi study for children with cerebral palsy
Arch Phys Med Rehabil
(2017) - et al.
Trajectories of family poverty and children's mental health: results from the Danish National Birth Cohort
Soc Sci Med
(2019) - et al.
Association between father involvement and attitudes in early child-rearing and depressive symptoms in the pre-adolescent period in a UK birth cohort
J Affect Disord
(2017) - et al.
How do grandparents influence child health and development? A systematic review
Soc Sci Med
(2019) - et al.
Income inequality and health: a causal review
Soc Sci Med
(2015) - et al.
Limitations of the randomized controlled trial in evaluating population-based health interventions
Am J Prev Med
(2007)
Hair cortisol as a biological marker of chronic stress: current status, future directions and unanswered questions
Psychoneuroendocrinology
Risk of poor development in young children in low-income and middle-income countries: an estimation and analysis at the global, regional, and country level
Lancet Glob Health
Birth cohort studies
KUNO-Kids birth cohort study: rationale, design, and cohort description
Mol Cell Pediatr
Fetal growth and childhood behavioral problems: results from the ALSPAC cohort
Am J Epidemiol
Impact of the Jamaican birth cohort study on maternal, child and adolescent health policy and practice
Paediatr Perinat Epidemiol
Sources of data for a longitudinal birth cohort
Paediatr Perinat Epidemiol
Australian and New Zealand birth cohort studies: breadth, quality and contributions
J Paediatr Child Health
All our babies cohort study: recruitment of a cohort to predict women at risk of preterm birth through the examination of gene expression profiles and the environment
BMC Pregnancy Childbirth
Data-driven vs. hypothesis-driven research: making sense of big data
Acad Manag Proc
Big data, new epistemologies and paradigm shifts
Big Data Soc
Cited by (0)
The authors have no conflict of interest to disclose.