Britain has a unique tradition in conducting longitudinal birth cohort studies. Three continuing studies have been embarked upon starting in 1946 (National Survey of Health and Development), 1958 (National Child Development Study) and 1970 (1970 British Cohort Study). Each was launched as a study of ante-natal and post-natal service provision, perinatal mortality and morbidity, and all three studies collected information about almost all births occurring nationwide in a target week in 1946 (NSHD, n=13,687), 1958 (NCDS, n=17,414) and 1970 (BCS70, n=17,198) respectively. Each study has subsequently comprised further sweeps at various ages (Figure 1). The studies present, both individually and in combination, an unprecedented opportunity to investigate the forces and patterns that have shaped and continue to shape the lives of three overlapping generations of people living in this country today. This paper assesses the qualities of the two cohort studies which are now the responsibility of the Social Statistics Research Unit (SSRU) at City University (the 1970 British Cohort Study (BCS70) and the National Child Development Study (NCDS)), and presents the rationale for bringing them together as an integrated programme of design and analysis. It then describes both studies in detail and considers the potential for inter-cohort comparison.

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