Early Childhood Longitudinal Study-Birth Cohort: A Welcome Addition to the Maternal and Child Health Field and Its Data Bases

Abstract

In this issue of the Maternal Child health Journal, a series of seven articles are being published, all deriving from the Early Childhood Longitudinal Study-Birth Cohort (ECLSB). The ECLS-B is a major, new, nationally representative longitudinal MCH data base––following over 10,000 children from birth through kindergarten––which will be of great potential research, practice and policy value for the MCH field. The majority of these articles were initially presented at a Department of Education-sponsored conference to highlight the new data base and some of its potential analytic uses. Dr. Donna Petersen, the MCH Journal Editor, learned of this and expressed interest in potentially publishing these presentations. After much editorial scrutiny, peer review and article revisions, this issue celebrates the new ECLS-Birth Cohort and its value to the MCH field through these publications. The Early Childhood Longitudinal Study-Birth Cohort represents a new MCH longitudinal data base––the first nationally representative data base to focus on children’s early health, development, care and education from birth (and even prenatally) through kindergarten entry and readiness for school, with an explicit methodological plan to follow a large cohort of children longitudinally. The ECLS-B also represents a continuation of an existing MCH related data base, the NCHS National Natality Surveys––the heretofore periodic retrospective follow back surveys (follow back to informants named on vital records) that since 1963 and most recently as the 1988 National Infant and Maternal Health Survey (NIMHS) have provided the MCH field with detailed, nationally representative, information on maternal characteristics/experiences, reproductive health outcomes and perinatal health services received. The ECLS-B expands upon the 1988 NIMHS data base and its 1991 Longitudinal Follow-up, with a planned, not opportunistic, longitudinal study of the U.S. national birth cohort of 2001. Several strategic features mark this new MCH data base. First, the ECLS-B data base has as its ultimate focus school readiness, and not simply positive reproductive and child health outcomes. School readiness is a critical developmental (and public policy) goal for our society. Consequently, the prime ECLS-B leadership derives from the Institute of Education Sciences, Department of Education (DOE) (with Westat and then RTI as the prime contractors), in partnership with NCHS and many other federal agencies (MCHB, NIH, etc.). The ECLS-B allows for a prospective rather than simply retrospective or cross-sectional examination of school readiness as a development outcome. Second, the ECLS-B data base reflects the blending (and not always easily) of the interests of two sometimes distinct professional worlds: the MCH, reproductive, pediatric and public health communities; and the child development, developmental psychology and educational communities. Too often these worlds run in parallel to each other, with separate funding streams, research interests, and programmatic initiatives; and yet they both deal with the same children and their families. Third, this data base reflects a growing federal commitment to the development and implementation of longitudinal data bases, and the enhancement of longitudinal methodology and conceptualizations. Indeed, the ECLS-Birth Cohort will overlap with the existing ECLS-Kindergarten Cohort that follows children’s early school educational, cognitive, social-emotional and physical development from kindergarten through 8th grade. And the ECLS-B can be seen as a M. Kotelchuck (&) Department of Community Health Sciences, Boston University School of Public Health, 801 Massachusetts Avenue, Cross-town Room 434, Boston, MA 02118-2605, USA e-mail: kotelchuck@bu.edu