In April 1972, doctors in the small New Zealand city of Dunedin began enrolling every baby born at the maternity hospital into what would become one of the longest-running health studies in the world. More than 50 years later, it’s still going. According to ‘The Dunedin Multidisciplinary Health and Development Study: overview of the first 40 years, with an eye to the future’ published by the study's own directors in the journal Social Psychiatry and Psychiatric Epidemiology, the Dunedin Multidisciplinary Health and Development Study has followed 1,037 people from birth, with day-long checkups at ages 3, 5, 7, 9, 11, 13, 15, 18, 21, 26, 32 and, most recently, 38.
For that last assessment, in 2010-2012, 95% of surviving participants showed a retention rate researchers themselves say is unusually high for this sort of long-term study. The authors also note that the study’s repeated measures across childhood, adolescence, and adulthood have made it a model for testing how early-life factors shape later health and behavior.
