Public dialogue exploring parents' views about proposed using of administrative data in Early Life Cohort Feasibility Study
Verian (formerly Kantar Public) partnered with the Centre for Longitudinal Studies (at UCL) to carry out a dialogue to inform the design of the Early Life Cohort Feasibility Study.
Funded by the ESRC, the Early Life Cohort Feasibility Study is collecting data on a new generation of UK-born babies in their first year of life. It is capturing information about their economic and social environments, and their health, wellbeing and development. It aims to paint a nationally representative picture of the circumstances and lives of a new cohort of babies born at a critical time in the UK’s history. The main aim of the project is to test the feasibility of sampling and recruitment for an innovative new UK-wide birth cohort study. However, the data from the feasibility study itself will also be made available to the research and policy community.
Verian ran a dialogue with parents of young children to inform the design of the Feasibility Study. The dialogue created a space for parents to come together with experts to have informed discussions and deliberate options on the way forward. The dialogue explored their views about proposed operational and substantive uses of administrative data in the study (including sensitive data) and what principles would be required to ensure these uses would be acceptable to them.
The dialogue created a safe and supportive environment for participants to learn about and discuss the issues and weigh up options. The workshops were conducted online via Zoom and involved two half day reconvened waves with 60 participants from across the UK. The participants had a range of attitudes to data sharing and varied levels of trust in government data controllers. The team created engaging visual materials to communicate highly technical topics to participants, such as representative sampling, weighting and how representativeness is assessed. A range of stakeholders took part in the workshops to observe the discussions and provide information to support accurate debate.
The dialogue provided high level principles for acceptable approaches to administrative data use and detailed recommendations on specific proposed uses for the study. The findings have supported decisions made by the team about the design of the study.
More information about how the insight has been used can be found on the UCL website: CLS | Public engagement on the Early Life Cohort Feasibility Study (ucl.ac.uk)
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