The Life Project: The extraord

In March 1946, scientists began to track thousands of children born in one particular week. No one imagined that this would become the longest-running study of human development in the world, growing to encompass five generations of children.

These are some of the best-studied people on the planet, and the simple act of observing their lives has changed the way we are born, schooled, parented and die. Touching almost every person in Britain today, they are one of our best-kept secrets. Helen Pearson has written their story in The Life Project: The Extraordinary Story of Our Ordinary Lives

She is joined by four people involved in the Bristol project, Children of the 90s, which has been charting the health of 14,500 families in the Bristol area since the early 1990s in order to improve the health of future generations: John Henderson, clinical paediatrician, specialising in asthma and lung function; Becky Mars, who researches self-harm and suicide in the cohort; Tom Vlietstra and Claire Bishop, both Children of the 90s participants.

The event includes a presentation by Helen Pearson on The Life Project , panel discussion with all speakers, and audience debate. It will be followed by a book signing. This event is organised by the Bristol Festival of Ideas, with support from Bristol Health Partners.

Claire Bishop is a participant in Children of the 90s, a full-time mother whilst developing a small holding for her family and running the local Cub Scout pack.

John Henderson is Professor of Paediatric Respiratory Medicine at the University of Bristol. As well as being a practising doctor at Bristol Children’s Hospital, he has worked on the Children of the 90s study for the past 15 years and is one of the co-directors of the study. His research has been based on the development of asthma and allergies and trying to find ways that these diseases could be prevented or better treated.

Helen Pearson is a science journalist and editor for the international science journal Nature. She has been writing for Nature since 2001 and her stories have won accolades including the 2010 Wistar Institute Science Journalism Award and two best feature awards from the Association of British Science Writers. Based in London, she has a PhD in genetics and spent eight of her years with Nature in New York.

Becky Mars is a research associate in epidemiology at the University of Bristol and an American Foundation for Suicide Prevention post-doctoral fellow. Her research interests include the development and outcomes of mental-health problems in adolescents and young adults, in particular self-harm and suicide. She is currently using data from Children of the 90s to look at why some young people act on suicidal thoughts whereas others do not.

Tom Vlietstra has been a Children of the 90s participant since birth, and a member of their advisory panel since he was 13. He is currently completing his practitioner doctorate in Clinical Psychology at the University of Surrey, his research interests are social inequality, classism and the impact prejudices have on health professionals’ clinical reasoning.

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