Longitudinal Study of Australian Children (LSAC)

Growing up in Australia: The Longitudinal Study of Australian Children is a unique, ongoing study of 10,000 Australian children and their families. The study is funded by Commonwealth Department of Social Services, managed by the Australian Institute of Family Studies, with data collected biennially by the Australian Bureau of Statistics. Jan Nicholson is one of the founding members of the LSAC consortium, leading the parenting and family content collected at each wave. The Transition to Contemporary Parenthood (TCPP) team have extensive experience working with partners and collaborators, analysing and disseminating findings arising from these data. Key areas of work have included:

• The development and validation of brief developmentally-appropriate measures of parenting across the childhood years
• Examining the impact of parenting on a range of children's outcomes including mental health and overweight
• Determining the effects of socio-economic circumstances on the wellbeing and parenting of mothers and fathers in couple, single and separated families
• Identifying the trajectories of parents' mental health difficulties across the early parenting years
• Understanding the effects of mothers' and fathers' work on their own health and wellbeing and that of their children
• Documenting the costs of common childhood disorders including mental health problems, attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, language difficulties, sleep problems and overweight.