Understand development
Trace how social, emotional, cognitive, physical and language development interact and change as children mature.
Home / About
A study built to follow a generation, not a moment.
The NSW Child Development Study began with a question that ordinary research struggles to answer: how does wellbeing actually unfold across a whole childhood, and what shapes it along the way?
Origins
Why the study exists
Mental health rarely arrives suddenly. It develops over years, woven through family life, schooling, friendships and the wider community. Yet most research captures only a thin slice of that story, a single survey or a one-off clinic visit, and then tries to reason backwards.
The NSW Child Development Study was designed to do the opposite. Led from UNSW Sydney, within its clinical medicine and mental-health research community, the study set out to observe a complete generation of children as they grow, drawing on information that is already collected in the course of everyday services.
By following the whole cohort forward in time, the study can see how early circumstances connect to later outcomes, and where well-timed support might change the course.
A study in stages
How the work has unfolded
Each phase adds a new layer to the same cohort, deepening what the study can see over time. Dates below describe the broad arc of the programme.
- Foundations
The study is established to link de-identified population records across health, education and community-services agencies for a whole cohort of NSW children.
- Middle childhood
The Middle Childhood Survey is fielded across NSW schools, capturing children's own perspectives during their middle primary-school years.
- Aboriginal-led strand
The Ngadhuri-nya component is developed with Aboriginal researchers and communities to centre the wellbeing of Aboriginal children.
- Adolescence & beyond
Follow-up extends into adolescence and adulthood, connecting early development to outcomes in later life and informing prevention.
Our aims
What we are trying to learn
Identify risk and strength
Distinguish the circumstances that put wellbeing under pressure from the protective factors that help children cope and recover.
Inform prevention
Translate findings into practical guidance for earlier, better-targeted support in schools, services and policy.
Build lasting infrastructure
Create a durable, ethically governed research resource that many studies can responsibly draw on for years to come.
Leadership & partners
A collaboration across sectors
The study is led by an academic research team at UNSW Sydney and carried out in partnership with government agencies and fellow universities. It depends on collaboration between people who hold data, people who analyse it, and the communities it represents.
Its scientific credibility is reinforced by sustained engagement with the wider research and policy community across Australia and internationally.
UNSW Sydney
Health agencies
Education systems
Community services
University research partners
Aboriginal community partners
Governance overview
Trust is the foundation of the science
Because the study works with sensitive information about children, its governance is deliberately strict. The principles below sit at the heart of everything the study does.
De-identified by design
Records are stripped of identifying details before research begins. Analysis happens on data that cannot be traced back to an individual child.
Ethics-approved oversight
The study operates under formal ethics approvals and ongoing review, with independent scrutiny of how data is used.
Controlled access only
Only approved researchers may use the data, within secure environments and under conditions that protect confidentiality.
Public-good purpose
Findings exist to improve children's lives. Results are shared to inform policy, practice and the broader scientific record.
Next
See how the evidence is built.
Explore the survey at the heart of the study, or read the methodology behind population record linkage.