Well, first, we welcome everyone to the second of these exciting SLC supported young lives methods workshops,
and I'm just very briefly and we're all really familiar with young lives, but it really reflecting on your lives as a research project.
It has been groundbreaking, I think, in four really significant ways.
The first is in its intellectual leadership and its its research excellence,
and that can be seen by the 400 papers published astonishing over the last 50 years.
The second is then in its in its real commitment to combining methods to quantitative and qualitative methods,
and those have had the opportunity to inform each other over a long period of time.
The third has been in its commitments to policy engagement and impact,
and to sustaining that in the four countries in which young lives as works, but also regionally.
And perhaps the loss is perhaps what makes your lives most unusual.
And that is its generosity as a research project.
It is very rare to find a large project that releases all of its data open access, and that really does it rather than force, doesn't it?
And this this really is what I think makes them stand out in this way.
It's truly an altruistic research project, but they're also showing great generosity in sharing not only the data,
but also some of the challenges and solutions of doing this kind of research over long periods of time in low middle income countries.
And this workshop is an example of that generosity, and we really look forward to finding out more about the exciting set case study for it.
We've got two speakers. We've got to marry Penny,
who is a British physician originally trained at Gut's and college in a in a in a university which we shall not speak the name of.
Not so far from here, a friend who she worked as a as a doctor in there in the NHS before being awarded a Wellcome Trust scholarship to study in Peru.
And when I took to Madrid,
we identified that Mary is it is a young lives teenager because she has been involved in the project for 19 and possibly 20 years now,
and has a real in-depth understanding of of of the engagement and and young lives within Peru and leadership within that.
Alan is the Young Lives child has been involved for a mere eight years in the project as young lives through and as a senior researcher at Grade.
And he's an economist by Background in Oxford,
the university to which we shall name and interview and really interested in looking at social programmes and skills formation.
So we're really excited to hear from both of them.
What we'll do is we'll hold your questions until the end, but then we're wanting an excited and engaged discussion.
The deputy flight over to Marion Alan. Well, thank you for for for for me here.
I'm very glad to have this opportunity to discuss with the experience that we have been accumulating over the over the years,
very onerous delays with many, you know, she's she's actually one of the founders of the study.
As Lucy was saying, I joined the army in 2012, a long time ago, but that, you know, I, I realise that it has been,
you know, a big opportunity for me also to be part of a team that already knew how to do this process.
And, you know, I have been trying to help since then as well.
So, yeah, I mean, I know that some of you already know a lot about the United States.
I just went to a and I just wanted to put some ideas and thoughts that we have about our experience with the study.
First, to give you a brief description of what we do as you know that you like to study.
It has been tracking two bird cohorts over 15 years in four developing countries Ethiopia, India, Vietnam.
Overall, the distress call a has because lot of understanding the causes and consequences of child poverty.
So these are status. It's been done in four countries. But I mean, today in particular, we're going to be talking about what we do in Peru.
However, I should mention that most of the design is shared with other countries, although in some cases it's specific to Peru.
I we try to highlight when that is the case in the case of Peru.
We are tracking two cohorts the the younger cohort,
which is the one that we tracked since they were eight one approximately, and we started tracking that cohort in 2002.
This is about 2000 children, and the last time we visited them, they were 15.
And then we have the older cohort, which is smaller,
is composed by an original sample of 700 children that we started tracking at the age of eight years,
and they had 22 years the last time we visited them and both cohorts.
I mean, the design is such that actually both cohorts are random samples from the same communities,
and we chose 20 clusters at random using the map of poverty from from Peru for 2001.
It's not actually nationally representative.
I mean, the idea was to for the sample to be proposed so that the the the richest five percent was excluded from the universe.
And then from the remainder, we randomly sampled 20 clusters and then within each clusters,
we randomly sample a point to start to search for households.
So therefore, what happened in the wrong one?
And since then, we have visited these two cohorts e on in fact, in four locations in 2006, 2009, 2013 and 2016 with to continue.
And, you know, over the night, it's been 15 years now, so obviously we have the last part of the sample.
I'm giving you some numbers there and I'll get back to the point of of attrition, which has been relatively low for this type of study.
And this diagram shows how much better the design of the studies of the day in the first row would you consider the older cohort,
the ages they're starting from age eight all the way to 22,
and then the second row is the younger cohort starting from each one all the way to age 15.
And something interesting that is not random is that you can see that they are comparable.
So you can compare the younger cohort at age eight with the older cohort the same age, but with data that was collected seven years before.
So this has been actually very useful for us to engage in conversation with policymakers
in Peru because we can actually say something about what's improving or not.
For four children in Peru. But also, I mean, I'm talking about the quantitative side of the study, but in parallel we have.
We started in 2007, a qualitative study that is composed of honest at some point within each cohort, a small sample.
And for this sample of children, we have a starting quality.
We collected information through interviews and focus groups with it with a small group of young children with these statistics in 2007 and.
The last round was 2014, and you know, is the good thing is that we have an interdisciplinary team, so I'm an economist,
but we also have a question of psychologists are part of the team of anthropologists in Sicily working with us.
So we've been dividing the work but trying to think carefully that you know this, this study as a whole is just one.
But it has these two components a quantitative and qualitative side.
This is just an example of how the original sample was distributed.
I said the original sample because of migration is no longer where the sample is located, but you can see 20 red dots in the map.
Those are the 20 districts that were randomly sample in wrong one in particular because see that there are three red dots in Lima.
And because Lima concentrates one-third of the population, they had a higher chance to be selected by a by a random method.
So originally we were, we had to go to these 20 clusters located,
which basically is the centre has to say we have to go to 20 districts in 12 regions in the country.
But in the last visit, although I don't have a map to show you,
but I can tell you that we have had to visit more than 200 districts in it in the 24 regions.
So that in the the rate of internal migration is very high in imperial.
And you know, this is what this has been one of the challenges for us to keep up with that.
I'll tell you more about that in a moment. I also wanted to mention something about the instruments that we use.
In this case. I want to focus on the quantitative survey because I am in charge specifically of that component with with many.
So we have a household questionnaire, which we've done since the beginning and is the caregiver of the child that typically answers the questions.
We also collected the anthropometric for the for the for the children,
for basically what we call the index, the index children, the child that was selected within the household.
We since 8:00, since the age of five.
We also collect cognitive achievement information through a that in that first visit, we used to be with a picture of capillary test.
And then after that, we started introducing other tests to measure in comprehension of mathematics.
Since the age of eight, there is also an individual question there used to be a child specific,
but now you know there are so we can no longer call them children and and use that instrument to collect information about many aspects.
I mean, it was it was mainly about the school and the school life in the beginning and aspects of especially such emotional dimensions.
Then in some educational history, so we can try to get education history about each year, what they were doing and they went to the.
Even since the beginning, we have also been collecting information about child work and then eventually, why just work?
Because there now there are no others, especially the other cohort.
We also have the self-administered questionnaire, which he saw, which was introduced first for the older cohort because of the patient.
We use it for the first time in the last visit to a younger cohort,
and we use that instrument to measure aspects related to risky behaviours and sexual behaviours, a knowledge of sexual information.
There are some questions about a bit of violence as well.
And we also have a community questionnaire, which is basically something that we collect to learn more about the districts.
So that's those are the components of the quantitative survey.
One thing I want to I wanted to highlight has to be related to the attrition rates of the study, so it's relatively low.
What I am doing in this graph is to compare the cohorts with other longitudinal studies that
are similar in that they have been following our cohorts since birth for a very long time.
There might be other stuff, but these are those that are closest in design to to our study.
And what you can see in the in the red bars, one of them, one of those is a little sample.
So we have to have a higher graduation rates than some of the other countries.
But overall, it's much smaller compared to two other studies for that for the younger cohort.
The red bars and the green bars show you'll see better information for the older cohort.
So this is this from my licence abortion rights. So it means like, for instance, every year we lose one percent of a sample.
So if by 15 years lost that 15 15 percent approximately.
But but that's lower than than what we actually may have expected.
And what we want to talk a little bit about on this occasion is, you know what, what we have been doing to keep attrition low.
So there have been a number of strategies.
So first, we have what I call the main strategies, what we do with respect that is there by design to reduce attrition while.
One thing we do is we do a tracking of the whole sample one year before each round.
We I mean, basically, it's a physical visit that we look to some this to basically make sure that they are still there.
But if they moved, we combine that with with the contact information we have from from from these families.
Well, I'll see you in some bye from their neighbours to contact them, so we won't know where they are, where they have moved and we will.
I mean, our goal is to look for them.
Across the country, no matter where, no matter where they are within the national borders for free for international migration,
there's there's nothing we can do about it other than to verify that they're actually went abroad.
And so that's one key part of the strategy for me has been to do this tracking exercise and to collect this contact information.
But we also do a number of other things that we think have contributed to keep the data crescendo.
But I want to give the body now to many to explain to us what these orders that they have been.
We've had a series of different activities that are designed to make sure that we know where people
are and you contact with them and that they feel they belong and they do actually feel they belong.
When you go to visit them, they say for me as a Romanian.
As a result, we have managed to create a feeling that you belong to something that that's what we on the on the list, actually.
But we we have them in Sicily.
They the institute.
We have a very active ethics committee, which is approved by the government through this quite well developed state ethics committees.
And it has to go through that as a government agency, which which approves them.
And the ethics committee takes their life very seriously and takes that work very seriously.
And so we have to have a form which is registered with this ethics committee and also get some reports.
And we've also been very lucky in that we've had we've been able to have some of the same experienced field workers,
but in other projects visiting houses and might not necessarily like our lives.
And and despite the fact that it's like Typekit work every four years or so,
we can able to always have some leads that even least half the people have been involved before, and that's very helpful.
So when you go back to the community, you sort of be known. I think that these is very important because there's a lot of crime through.
And so people are sort of a little bit more confident that this is somebody that they've at least some of the group they've known before.
And so that's been that's been very helpful having same field work, some key staff that in particular, for instance, it's really important.
There's a number of ethical cases, there's a number of problematic cases,
and it's important that the field worker knocks on the door they can ask for, you know, the father is the father left.
So there's a certain amount of being able to be quite careful about about the unfortunate.
When we get back to the house, we've collected all this information.
So people assume that, you know, you can remember what they told you the time before which, but you can't 60000.
But at least you know that that you know, this particular household subtropical environment.
So it's it's possible. That's very helpful.
Two things are helpful for retention of the field workers and prior knowledge of of of these ethical cases,
which allow us to display that at some point. We also have to work.
We have. You can't just march into a community where you normally have to have some kind
of entrance through the local so you don't need to know what you're up to.
And that's what of course, having having.
Being registered and having had the ethical committee help somebody come up to you and ask you, what are you doing here,
particularly political parties, but that's not what, particularly in the period in which we have national problems with Senator Nelson.
There's so so we also present to district authorities,
know what we're doing and generally get that help and also get some information
from them because they also participate in in the survey of the community that we.
It's also quite useful because there are other Indians in this pair,
and this means that for lots of different people working in communities, it's also we don't even know.
It's useful that they also know who we are. So we're not competing with them because they impose their capital.
And so it's sort of if we maintain good relations with the other NGO, we're not we're not doing the same thing as they are competing with them.
We have then of course, you know, farmers do expect something back.
They've given all this information. It takes quite a long time to be up to date.
Maybe related to ours,
but it's more often four hours and you're sitting there in the household and everybody else is looking through that sort of thing.
So we do give we have to give different information.
We give some nutritional advice. We try not to. I mean, we we give sort of general,
we don't give particularly specific advice because we're not trying to find the balance
between being ethical and obviously not letting somebody stall and on the other hand,
changing the lives of these children. So we sometimes seek a balance between these.
And obviously, if we do find things that are absolutely urgent, we can.
Yes, we do give advice to the doctor or whatever.
So we now know so we have so we give them the results, for instance, of the heights of weight.
And so the results of the anthropometric and and we've now got a sort of consultation guide,
which is just this business that we haven't done that before.
And this is this round is that is that the thing that we see from two to three nights one this time is I forgot the others,
but this tells you where you can get help from, from within.
You have such a nice, wonderful experience of like a booklet because you have to improve it.
So we give it, you know, so we give them advice where they could get help for different things. And then this is something that we give back.
And the other thing which has been very popular is that we take a photo of the child, child of the mother of a couple of photos.
Then we give the secretary back, say to the family, at least we select one and get back to the family.
And if you go back into the houses, you sometimes they have relatives young photos that's been.
I think that was a very good move because of some of the things I did.
It was a good moment because then that has been very popular because not everybody
can afford to get around to having certain they that children of different ages.
And so I think that was that was a very good idea. We don't pay.
We might get a small gift, but are the children that have been buried and drowned,
but we don't actually pay them for this because we think that would be one of the ethics committee, as you would believe, would allow us to do that.
Not in this context. They do allow in some context. So I think those are the the main strategies, and I have to say,
I think this should probably this is terribly satisfactory because you do because on the whole,
100 percent of the whole people are quite pleased to see that again despite the pandemic.
I think one of the things perhaps we have mentioned have mentioned strategy is that I think people feel kind of like important.
I mean,
they do feel that they're contributing there so that we know that what we are told us is being taken into account has been absolutely unbelievable
in terms of the production of materials and papers and come out and said they're looking at probably people now we get up and implement,
I'm not sure they do. And so I think that, you know, they feel they belong to that.
So I think that the millennials sort of force that feeling of belonging.
And I think it's also quite helpful to me and I know some people I've got to ask and don't agree with that.
But I think the efficiencies being driven by really considering that we do ask quite a lot of.
I also think that have to say, I think in Peru, families are very tolerant and that are traditionally rather not.
So that that helps us.
When I said that, we've established a relationship with the family, the people going through this without forgetting that it was not.
Yeah. So in a way that makes it feel important, we feel.
But brothers also, I have to say, very flexible. I mean, if I have to go with something,
if I have to go and have a night or they have to go at 6:00 in the morning and do this and that they have to be there accompanied by someone.
But it's there's a lot of them. There's a lot of emphasis on whatever it takes.
We will we will try and get this interview done at the time.
That's convenient for the family. The other thing is that, yes, I also agree other things.
I think that we do ask about things which families consider important.
So this is not just survey about something that's utterly unbearable, different to are.
These are asking questions. They also consider important in the lives that we have.
And as mentioned, the self-administered questionnaire, which, you know, the child goes off home building without anybody else looking.
And that's and I think that's that's that's that's actually very interesting.
And increasingly so as children, the older, we've never worked on the project,
which has produced so many publications and presentations nationally and internationally.
I think I think Joe and started with another school had that feeling changed to Oxford, and I think all people be involved,
all the rounds of cuts that have been incredible in terms of getting information out there.
And I think if you go back to, I think that that really fundamentally not all of them by all means.
I mean, some people are a bit reluctant to have to come out at different times and they do,
but they usually have very many people who actually refuse it.
More people, I think we lost because we can't find that we've migrated things like that.
I think they do feel that they're kind of contributing somebody special because their young lives.
So I think that's what we've learnt from.
Well, certainly what I've learnt from from from doing this longitudinal study that's been that this kind of evolved into a life that's.
Really, do this really is now open to questions and thoughts and comments or discussion.
I have a first one about the photographs and will bring a brilliant idea and a lovely idea you can see for the families.
I wonder whether they might also have a use in record in working out that you've got the right person,
the right child, to use them for identification purposes as well.
When I join, who are they using this strategy? But we use it, especially in the in the first couple of rounds and the second round because,
you know, a bit all has improved a lot in the last few years.
But in many cases it's not that the House has a number of sites.
So we know the street. Then with that one, we are in the community.
We know the name of the street with.
The picture is very useful to find the house in order to make sure that they were looking for the same for the same child.
But I will say that over time, that has become less important,
and what has become really important is the fact that the children are actually expecting the picture.
I mean, in fact, the Sun-Times has contacted us over time, saying, Look, I lost the photo that you took in.
Round one is the only photocopy with my with my grandmother. So can you send me a copy of questions from them?
I think it's really important and interesting to also reflect on the changes that you experienced over the course.
I mean, I don't know if the changes have been so dramatic and improves they have in other countries, but the rise of internet use mobile phones,
and I know you've talked in the past about the use of Facebook to be in touch with the children and so on.
I think we really could reflect on that, but also what the introduction of handheld computers has meant,
because when I started, it was all done with paper questionnaires.
So indeed, we introduced a tablet officially for the full sample in in our fourth visit in 2014.
But in 2009 around, we are ready to introduce them.
But you know, I mean, this was before I joined,
but the main point was that we were not sure about the implications of introducing this technology and in particular was
going to be the impact on the on the on the answers when you move from a paper based questionnaire to a tablet base,
you know. But basically, what we always try to do is to keep the methodology a constant over time so that we don't lose comparability.
So taking this culture into consideration is the protein we know with with her
former colleague from Oxford came up with a design for the paint chart back then.
How we call a work on the idea of randomising so that half of the interviews were
done with the tablet and the other half with with a paper based questionnaire.
Naturally, there is a Polish paper with the results. Some of them are that, you know, the overall quality has not been affected if the information.
But is faster is faster to have to look to run an interview with a tablet.
There might be a little bit of a loss in terms of information. E when, when, when the when the questions are cut, many items, but actually does.
That works better with a computer,
because it computers you can block very quickly start tonight when you know that the batteries are essentially no no.
It's easier to to to plug things in with the tablet.
So overall, I think there have been an improvement in the quality of information that we collect.
And then you round four as a consequence of this. We introduced the use of tablets for the full sample and we had two challenges there, I think.
One was that some of our enumerators, which are very good, they didn't know how to handle properly a tablet,
especially that touchscreen tablet, because you need a touchscreen tablet to do this quickly in the field.
So we spent some time utterly. I mean, mentally, they go there.
I mean, I have to be it. By 2014, I myself had not used a touchscreen at that very moment.
And the same with our narrators. We spent some additional weeks of training just to make sure that we we were all at the same level.
Maybe after the book probably may have lost a couple of enumerators just for that reason because they never got used to the tablet, to be honest.
And another concern also had to do with security. Once we were in the field, you know that this, especially in round four.
I mean, nowadays, laptops, tablets are very cheap.
They were not that cheap in 2014, especially given that we had to run a software there.
So actually, we went to a field in Peru with tablets that list that cost a hundred dollars back then.
That's a lot of money for a tablet. We were concerned about security. We have only lost one tablet.
In the first week of training of the of the of the of the fieldwork, which made us very concerned, but luckily was the only tally we lost,
we got the stolen, to be honest, and it was because actually there had been a breach in the protocol.
I mean, in part because of this, because of that, we made the protocol very tight so that, you know,
if you are if you have an interview at nine a.m., you need to stay alert when you're done.
So we sent a taxi or our driver to to pick you up.
You know, you shouldn't you shouldn't go by yourself with the tablet, but you know these are.
Protocols that we already had, but they became important not only now for the for the for our enumerators security, but also for for the Quitman.
There was also another protocol.
I mean, obviously the important thing was the numerator, like if someone comes with a gun and tries to take the it's obviously you give the tablet.
But we are also concerned about information. So we have this protocol that once you complete an interview in Housefull before you leave the household,
you safe everything in your USB and you put it in your pocket.
So that in case for some reason you lose either because you get a stolen or simply your father's and you, you lose the tablet.
We still keep the information something very interesting the happening around 4:00 that we
were only allowed to leave because we introduce a tablet that is that for the first time,
we introduce a tablet based test to measure of protective function.
So this was a very interesting experience because, um, for many reasons,
one of the reasons is actually some of the children have not used that outlet before.
So it was so we had to. We had a big pilot to make sure he was on at work.
You know, I'm talking about a few years now. Nowadays, things have improved in Peru.
There there's been a lot of migration to urban areas, so maybe the portion of his sample, the you settled it.
Obviously, they have youth. We ask them to use them.
But, you know, are in their general life. I think now they have much more access to computers, to the internet, to smartphones.
We have had to adapt our our position that is sometimes adding that question about use of social networks.
But yeah, I mean, that's one of the I think part of the challenge is also to keep the question updated to the changes in the technology.
Another challenge to keep it. As short as possible, I think that there's always a lot of other things you'd like to ask.
There's already long who it's, it's long as we we see this part that we need to repeat, we want to repeat down.
And between that and this of new information, it is a long it's a long interview.
But but we have to be careful not to make it even longer.
No, this is just a challenge. That is right. We'll take you back.
I just had something follow up on that. Switching from paper to computer surveys in terms of the paper, do you suppose the earlier hardcopy surveys?
Well, we started for a few years, but after a given time, we have to not shred them right?
All right. Yes. Because in terms of what might get lost when you make that change,
I know some studies in the UK positive studies have looked at marginalia in surveys.
So sort of the power of data, the kind of writing in the margins that some workers might do about a particular
householder or child that doesn't really get factored into the data that's entered.
But that's another sort of main context data that that may or may not.
Well, another advantage actually to and that's what I remember.
I was rung up by somebody from way off somewhere and they were they were in some companies.
It's a problem of litigation or there was something that was really important to know the child.
They were now adolescent when they were born and what their name was and what their father's name was.
And and we so we went back. We just don't have the paperwork.
And so I went back and found there the. Agreement form.
You know, when they agreed to participate in the project and was able to scan that and said we offered to them first.
So I think it worked. So sometimes it's an advantage and unexpected advantage.
Yeah, they were going to do something really important.
And in fact, just to this point, even though it's true that we we have to destroy the physical copies of the question after a few years.
But we have a digital copies, not of everything, but of the key things that are protected in that in the server that to a project.
Yeah. OK. So first of all, thank you so much for this interesting presentation.
Just wonder if you have any information or feedback from the families in this study, how their involvement in the study had affect their lives.
And you have very you mentioned very interesting boy,
that many of the families or maybe their parents said that they feel that they feel special, they feel that they contribute to the study.
And as a social worker, I see this as an act of empowerment for these were never and never been for me personally.
So I would like to listen. You have any reflections?
Well, I think that's I think that's a very good point, actually.
I mean, it is difficult to know whether we do have an impact on the family, and I don't know that we really sort of empower them greatly.
But I mean, we haven't been able to measure that, obviously, because we don't have that control.
But it's a good point, I think, because it's only once every four years and there's a lot of other surveys going on.
I mean, you know, through a number of national surveys and things, it's not.
It's not. This is a bit more in depth and a rather slightly so it's a rather different survey, but it's still happening and it's a good point.
And it's it's difficult to measure, but I think we probably don't, but it's difficult to say because we don't have a control.
We did put it in the source of the applications to do that, to create what was it,
a match sample in Peru and her cohort and to look at their outcomes compared to those who've been in the study.
Unfortunately, it wasn't funded this from. But it's that question is key and it comes up again and again.
But it's also important to highlight that we do have other concerns.
The exact opposite, actually, which is because we're only selecting one child in each household and we have actually sort of the qualitative research.
People have indicated that they think that that child was selected for some particular reason.
We actually worry about the possibility that that child may be favoured in some way within the household.
There may be more investment in that child as compared to the others.
There's no way of knowing, but we've just got little anecdotes with comments or questions that have made us think,
Gosh, is that an indication that we've actually created some kind of inequality within the household?
I hope to goodness it's not true, but we don't know. I think the learning, though, is that research is always an intervention.
And I remember a young lives was was evaluated with I funding some years ago by a group of statisticians,
and they actually talked about the contamination of survey data by using qualitative data,
qualitative research because you develop more intense relationships with quantitative research.
And they were really worried that the research would actually have a negative impact on the survey data.
So there are lots of ways in which we would love to be able to understand those those dynamics better.
And the funding would be needed, though, to do it. As you say now, we absolutely would need to control and let.
Those statisticians could argue the opposite direction is welcome, but all that it audit it, improve the survey results.
You could, I mean, maybe just to just to at least not.
I mean, I I mean, we might be disagreeing with many of these.
I I do think we have we must have some type of impact.
I mean, I mean, as Bill was pointing out, there is no such thing as a purely observational design.
I mean, you are there, you're obviously something new or unique.
And you know, they know that we're coming again every three years. They might feel particularly special because they are.
Many of the millennials are the only full time Spanish in particular.
You know, we have this consultation date. Which provides access to information that is publicly available,
but that some of the families might not have the resources to get this information because of the inefficiency of the government.
So we have provided information that may be useful for them that I love myself.
But then there is a question about what we ask about in Britain.
We have a question about educational aspirations.
So we've been asking for for many years to this, to this group of participants know if you don't have any constraint in life,
what is the highest level of education you would like to achieve?
You know, probably no one has asked this question before to them, so that surely must be reflected into, you know, maybe I should or more.
I mean, so we indeed we we thought about this idea and we think there might be something about us having an impact.
The interesting thing is that our sample is a random sample and that actually allow us to think about different ideas,
which we have to reconstruct a control sample.
One idea would be to obtain a new random sample from the original universe or do some kind of matching with communities are nearby there.
The the large challenge there is that you have to be able to migration because we will need to
go to these communities that are similar or are located closer to the regional communities.
And we will need to look not only for adolescents that have the same age as our cohort as an adult.
But we will need to search for those adolescents that were born there that migrated.
I mean, we think this is feasible but is very expensive. And you know is it reminds us of an important question for us.
If we have an impact, we would like to happen now. So then a lot of these in the future.
Thank you so much for the wonderful presentation and congratulations on all the decades of work and you have done.
And I was just curious about the design of the younger and older cohorts and the points you mentioned about,
you know, the possibility of, for example, comparing an eight year old in the comfort zone of the risk of heart with somebody
who ages into the same group that later covered maybe some at an older age.
But you kind of how you think about this.
I guess whether you're thinking, Oh, perhaps you have done this, you know, being able to achieve you detect certain level changes.
And I guess also, you know, if we think about if we do believe that the measurement affects either how people respond or in fact,
their experiences or both,
whether that there might be of how you think about comparing somebody who's doing the story for the first time, for example,
for somebody we think a few times already and they probably already have these papers, obviously necessary advisor and so on.
And so we what we have, I mean, the the maybe the the the main, uh,
a use we have made to this component of our design has been especially useful with it in our relationship with the policy makers
because they are always interested in trying to understand what what has changed over time improve for for children and our listeners.
So because of this design, we can say, you know, our child has the age of 15 now.
If you compare him, compare them with children the same age.
But seven years ago, you can see certain things that have improved.
In the case of blue standing have reduced considerably the years of applications that then have also improved considerably.
Cognitive achievement has improved, but slowly, maybe not enough.
We can say that with the data. So this is why it's particularly useful for us.
And also, as you're saying, for for for the studies, for analysis, it can become an obvious control group that maybe, maybe not that,
not that what maybe not the other one group is not affected,
but they're affected by the fact that different age so that you can actually do analysis with this.
There's been some studies, but actually, that's the nice thing about the press, as you were mentioning to see that is is publicly available data.
So this, you know, this can be done even if it has to be done by accident.
I think one of the things that's really interesting about the into what comparison was,
this was one of the ways in which we discovered the pace of increase of rates of obesity in adolescents wasn't bearing the way we did,
where we're by the younger cohort as they were in adolescence, where the rates of obesity were much higher than they were.
They have been able to cope with the same ages.
And this is this is really opened up a whole new area of research because it's obviously becoming such an important consideration
in so many countries where historically that the research was always focussed on undernutrition and stunting and so on.
And now we're seeing this dramatic shift, particularly that shift in adolescents, which again, I think takes.
Then it takes the whole framing of of the understanding of human development into a different
age group where so much of it historically was thought to be about early childhood.
We're now looking at the passage of what analysis we can really see what's happening in adolescence
that we should be concerned about as a sort of second period of major change in human development.
Major sort of transition point. Yeah, I think we've also been able to contribute to it with this without any intervention,
able to see that some children who were not necessarily condemned,
to be sure all their lives that actually were able to catch up a little bit later on,
which was not kind of like a sort of belief that everything happened.
I think in the first three years of life in California to be the end, and there is,
you know, it's not surprising little bit more flexibility later to say.
Hi. Well, I've got a security compliance team, I've got a couple of questions.
He spoke a little bit about attrition to age came up in there,
but were there any other factors and at any point where you was able to sort of ask other household members like why one of them had migrated?
So treat it as an outcome because in some circumstances you might as actually something that was beneficial
and at a certain point is kind of a labour opportunity in a different country or something like that.
And also, I don't actually know the origins of the young life study,
so I don't know whether you got funding that all of 15 years follow up at the beginning.
And did you at any point consider increasing your sample size at a given point to study certain rare outcomes?
It sort of became more interesting. All of policy makers started to sort of really kind of become interested in saying,
maybe you want to offer some relief of playing a couple of hundred ActionScript.
Yeah, I mean the. The stuff you got from this originally was defeat, defeat originally.
We have we have moved into different funders. We developed a different fund, a different tone.
Yeah, I mean, it's also we started four five units I mentioned and then reviewed and for various reasons.
And took over the same institutions.
I think in the in their countries were moving in right to the beginning of what intelligence do you have to think about increasing in some society?
But the two time studies were halfway through.
Yeah, right. So it's about saying we want to bring in another and number of young people a certain age to match this kind of area,
to see whether we look at whether we might have had an impact on is really just incorporate them and use the same questionnaire in those participants.
But you just have more people in the study. Yeah.
Well, the answer is no, we haven't.
I mean, we haven't ever considered increasing the original, I mean, adding in more 15 year olds or anything like that.
I think partly because we haven't felt we've really had to because the numbers are quite large
and they would be difficult to see as it would be difficult to do pairing as well because some,
you know, just difficult to match. I'm not quite sure how we would find a group that was sort of similar that
would then contribute without distorting the the group that we originally had.
I'm not quite sure how we would do it, but we have anyway.
So the answer is that we haven't done that. You have another question.
Did you say something else? Yes. Yeah. Just to just to compliment to that.
So it gave us funding for 15 years for the four.
For the first time around since the beginning, we knew that we were going to be able to restrict over time.
We have had our founders because there are other sources of funding to introduce a service, for instance, or to analyse the data.
So but if you have to be the main contributor.
Yeah, I mean, it's true that we I mean, we probably thought about this, but we actually didn't make it happen to increase a sample size.
I guess, you know, we have to look with the fact that, you know, our studies are very, very complex.
From a logistical point of view,
because of the high rates of internal migration and I guess probably we didn't want to get into more trouble, to be honest there.
But but I I see I see your point. I would have been useful, you know, in the way we think when we think about the future,
because if you if you see a number, you realise that it is the younger corporate lawyer.
So eventually we might need to,
which officially which we know will no longer follow the older cohort because the sample gets even even if the attrition rate is low.
Yet the sample gets. Also, the sample is worth lots of money.
So we we might have to think about not tracking them at some point.
Whereas in the case of her younger cohort, we think there will be able to leave for many, for many more years.
I mean, that is true. I mean, I think we thought about it, but you know, we need to obtain more funding.
And also, the complexity of the fieldwork will have increased and these are very complex.
I have to say about that. You also have a question about attrition.
And the reason for that reason. I mean, we're working on this with a buddy with a colleague in terms of understanding the weather.
Attrition is so driven by several characteristics and that hope is going to be released soon.
But what I can tell you that for this specific case of Peru in particular, but I think it may apply to some extent to other countries, is that I mean,
one important thing that you see that the attrition rate is higher for the older cohort
and that in that you see the larger increase in attrition rate happens from age 15 to 19.
So that's why it is not a huge increase in attrition, but you see that it's more than what we used to have before.
It was very linear that the increase in the rate of attrition and then it jumped between 15 and 19.
That's between rounds a four or five.
And I'm sorry to round three or four, I'm sorry. And the reason in part two, I mean,
multiple migration is one of the reasons so many of them complete the school and move two to the closest city to work.
That doesn't mean we don't follow them, we follow them. But it is just for that fact.
It is likely that we might have more problems in finding them.
Then also, I think by 19 there, somehow it's one thing about the the the the the the ethical approval is that,
you know, between that pact between these two rounds, they they became official.
So we had to be in the past, we would've requested consent from the caregiver from them.
But if that information, I think we only needed consent from them and you have somehow more empowered, thought the left to me.
If I have to continue with this study, I might say no.
I mean, and in another context, another thing connected with this eight you think resonate is that.
If you became independent, it means you need to we need to ask you to answer the question.
In addition to everything else, because when you were age 15, when your parents.
The question that was less answered by the caregiver. But if you're independent.
No, no, not anymore. It is interesting to see, though, that the next round at these very two, we managed to.
Convinced some of the previous participants that.
Not sometimes, not really declined to continue.
But, you know, it's like when you knock at the door separately, very polite, and they're going to say no.
So yeah, knock at the door and they say yes, but come back tomorrow and you knock at the door.
The next day, come back tomorrow, please. When you've done that three times, this is kind of a refusal, right?
So you don't you don't. You start knocking at the door. But it's not that the person has said, I don't want to be part of this day anymore,
because if they say that they don't want to be part of it anymore, we would.
That's fine, of course, and we don't don't try to trade them in their crown.
But if it has been something like like a. polite refuse, I don't know how to call it and we knock at the door again.
And it's interesting to see that by listening to some of them wanted to come back.
I think has lots of people. The fact that the age, you know, you feel more empowered.
You like, I want to something different.
But then that these are my old friends from the United States knocking on the door again, I should probably open the door and talk to them.
Can I just add something? I mean, I would love to just say that it's true we didn't expand the sample, but we did.
We did add siblings data.
I can't remember which round that was, which enabled us to do much more on intra household demand dynamics than we've been able to do before.
And the other thing I think, which is even more powerful was the school effectiveness study, which we introduced in 2010,
which basically came about because of policy interests and donor interest in the extraordinary effects
of education and the incredible aspirations that this is some of children had towards education.
So we introduced a week of extra funding to do this, and we were basically doing school based research,
and that's actually over 30000 children across the four study countries.
That really is much bigger than the household sample in total,
and that's enabled improved that for us to make the link between the indexed child and the school of their own.
Perhaps. I mean, you know, it's true.
I mean, actually,
the previous question about using the older cohort as a comparison of the younger cohort or vice versa and what thinking about majoring in this,
but now your cousin might be able to see. So we have.
So we basically follow one child in each household at but for the rest of the children.
We collect very basic information six a level of education and same time use, which is not not not which is a lot, actually.
But since the third round, we started collecting additional data for the younger sibling.
So they're the student born right after the day, the child.
And obviously the reason why we did this was to kind of look for a not to have a counterfactual within the household.
And actually, some of the deaths have been more successful in terms of the journey that we still have,
but just within siblings radiation to look at the impact of programmes.
A bill would typically both seem to have been affected.
Have we see the programme starting from very early or late in life?
So the sample? Yeah. So actually, when I say that we for 2000 children in the younger cohort, approximately, in fact,
is two thousand seven hundred, for example, maybe if you include the younger siblings and for them,
we collect the anthropometric and one on one cognitive test and it social emotional competence to say so we can actually do that comparison.
And just when I think there was one question that I forgot to answer about in migration.
I mean, so. I mean, you know, we our data is publicly available.
And what you can clearly see there is we have some anonymized variables, but you can see if the person has has moved.
And what whether the person has moved, but within the same district also has moved to a different district.
And there is also another information about the person who still lives in an urban area or a remote area and the name of the region and province.
So if you combine all this, you can actually finish what migration means in Peru.
You can have to establish where someone has migrated and obviously you can.
And also, we have questions about for those who have moved to a new district.
The reason why they did so, obviously in many cases, is searching for work opportunities.
Lots of opportunities. And so you can use this information to look at the, you know, what drives migration.
And also because let me try to study what are the impacts of migration on outcomes.
That is in fact also a nice study by one member of our team, Simon Cowell.
He's the former PI of the study, who looked before into the impact of the migration of them,
of the mother of the young children and its impact on child outcomes.
And for that in particular, in the case of Peru in round two. For those that are familiar with the dataset, if you go to run the dataset,
there is a model that measures the migration of the mother so that you can actually do that.
I used to have to say that we collect more information about migration, more specifically about the places.
But because of the confidentiality agreement, we cannot release that data.
But even with a publicly available version of this dataset, there are many opportunities to analyse this this this,
this topic, which are how inequities on my case because there are so many things to do, but some of you can do it.
Well, I have a question. I confess what I should say as we talk about attrition, the attrition rates of young lives are remarkably low.
I mean, if you look at British based cohorts, you'll often see up to 40 percent attrition rate over the same period.
So it really is. Congratulations to the team so that we maybe we may be talking about what predicts attrition,
but we're really talking about tiny numbers relative to other studies.
My question is about something which we have in all of our studies, which is a checklist,
and the quick is the list of questions that we wish we'd asked but haven't found.
And I wondered whether you had your own checklist, official, unofficial and things.
That is particularly for other researchers who are considering working on starting cohorts.
Things that you wish you had asked, but didn't. That means no.
I know I might have asked about pets earlier on in the study, but you have to explain that, Mary.
Well, actually, this is not just me through limbo is very keen on that pet, mainly dogs.
It's almost exclusively dogs. And so it's not just me.
And so we did introduce a question of what ground we introduced it in that did you have pets?
And it has been quite interesting where we haven't fully analysed it yet, but we're working on getting some funding to analyse it from an early age.
But it would have been quite interesting also. But this is that's a minor issue.
I mean, one thing that is quite nice to know is the British people's hearts were you'd be surprised.
I mean. I mean that just as an example, this is a Leamer example, but a very large number of families have dogs.
But because it's a dog, we have a dog walker because we've improved.
And somebody probably has to live in the house because it's got animals in the house, maybe dogs, some cats, guinea pigs, but mostly dogs.
So people, you know, it's it's an expenditure.
And even in rural areas, I'm not sure everyone are very different from, you know, if you live in a rural area, a farm dog and things,
but limits certain things and not just middle class areas, lemur shantytown areas, a lot of people have have to have pets.
So this is kind of like a the size of because it's not the most important aspect of their lives.
But some of us think it's interesting and it's pretty complete, actually.
But I haven't thought, Oh my goodness, I wish we'd really asked that.
No. Yeah, I mean, I can put a specific thing.
Perhaps if you ask me another thing, I'd remember something I'd ask that I would have liked of all, but it has been.
Yeah, but maybe one reason why many cannot come up with questions that she wish we had added is
because because of the design that we have this older cohort of the younger cohort and.
You know this this has been established like this in a way so that we have the chance to introduce questions for the older cohort first.
And you know, if there is anything to be modified or approved, then we have a few years so that pilot and the younger the same age.
We actually have a very big question, everybody. Then they have the same age. So I would say probably that we have some regrets.
Well, maybe amongst more of the older cohort, but not so much older than the younger cohort,
because we already had a chance to think about this for many years. For instance, know I wish we had included people.
The beta test since the first round for the older cohort, not for the younger cohort, because they were too young.
But, you know, so this is not a regret for the younger cohort, but it is for the undercover eye,
which we have not seen maybe a cognitive achievement just for the caregivers in the first visit.
But you know, I see also that our question and reserves are so long already that I can see why there was a logic to keep giving it as it was.
I wish we had it started with the civilians earlier. I wish we could start that with them in trying to.
And, you know, we learnt our time, I remember with the seal, is you.
I mean, because with the seal, we started only with dental metrics and the cognitive information.
But then after we said, we should also ask about such emotional competencies from them.
So, yeah, I mean, there are some things that we could have done differently, and also, I guess in terms of measuring early childhood development,
I think many things have improved over time and discuss tools,
a standardised measure of early childhood development that maybe were not available from one 2002.
Or maybe they were. But I'm very happy with the information we've collected.
But on that area of early childhood development, we could have collected more in from one or had an earlier round one.
I think that's been one of the biggest challenges actually is initiation already at age one.
You know, for us, obviously, some birth cohorts raised tons of questions that we'll never be able to answer.
And I think it's really important to remember that because we've entered the nutrition debate and made a very strong case for this argument,
that children can recover the time and they don't just recover physically, but they also recover cognitively in terms of educational attainment.
So people come straight back to us and say, well, which children are recovering?
And we're not able to answer the questions about whether it's the children who were malnourished.
Maybe they weren't malnourished as long or as badly or as early as some of the other children.
And maybe that's what's enabled them to recover. That, of course, is the most vital question when you when you post this new opportunity for recovery.
People need to know that because otherwise, what are they going to know? What's how is it going to help?
So I get very frustrated that we weren't actually really gathering data from in utero and also, you know, much earlier from the first.
I mean, there are many studies which do start in the first phase of life.
There were reasons why it was a good choice to make, but it's had that negative consequence, I think, in terms of kind of answers we can provide.
But we didn't know we were going to make this discovery, so we didn't know we were going to need to go to answer those questions, which is your point.
I think of another thing that would be. Quite interesting would have been that they're now changing the team a bit, but there are now.
Things you put on your hands that would tell you how many pieces you are putting away.
Tell me how many pieces you done and measure up physical activity, that would have been interesting.
We don't really have any good measures of physical activity we've got so that we've got not crude measures where have done.
We don't have to do very much on dietary intake either, really, but it is certainly physical activity would have been there.
There are much more opportunities now to be able to.
I'm not sure we never got it back again, given, but Buffalo, given that in the beginning, was a presence.
In fact, as we read it and then moving it back to you or something, but um.
But I think that would have been something that would be interesting because we don't have very good information on that,
and it's probably quite different in rural and urban areas. Can they add something to this?
I mean, you know, because we do this every three, four years, each round,
and so each round we have a new discussion about what are we going to measure now?
Of course, we need to keep a lot of comparability with the older cohorts.
You know, there's a big part of the question that has to remain the same.
We will have to assess in time and we have to cut this model because, you know, maybe people are not using this for research.
Maybe you know what's exciting the first, but it's not really working.
And then research, you know, a whole discussion about what we want to measure now.
So this is an interdisciplinary group.
I'm an economist from the office of a psychologist. We have an anthropologist comedies, but this is amazing.
But also, we want because it is. We have to remember that is an international study for countries.
We also want to have comparability with other countries. So every few years, we gather together to discuss what's going to be the question next week.
And everybody wants to let a question and we're at Molineux.
So if that is a tough negotiation. So we have at some point we have reached an agreement in which if you if you say you want to add something,
you also have to say what what you want to drop. So that the time remains the same.
And that's what maybe that's why, you know, America's really great ideas about things to incorporate and petroleum i the theme of
let's give them illustration time a constant because it's a every very long question.
One thing that I would probably like to have more, which would be about the food environment.
So when when we've we've asked them, we have some information on some dietary intake and diversity and a few things not obviously,
we can't do a full nutritional study, but it would be I think it would have been interesting and it would be interesting.
Now I think to. Have some information on that food environment, not to say how far you are from shops, what shops are available,
and this is a whole area which we haven't really and wouldn't be very difficult because we do have the community.
You know, we work in the community as well. So I think that that's something we might think about.
I think a few questions now, but it would have been would be it would be useful to have known a bit more access to food.
Where do you get it from? Any other questions?
I mean, you talked about the longitudinal survey and we know young life of mixed methods study, you know, fabulous qualitative research team in place,
and they've been able to respond to questions as they arise, whether it policy, relevant issues or things that have emerged in the survey.
And they've been able to follow this through qualitative studies in the online communities and where those experiences still exist in the sample.
They can then go go outside of the community. And I was wondering here if you on what you think the qualitative research adds to the survey.
Yeah. No, I mean, maybe one reason why I haven't thought much about the qualitative component of the
study is because I have been more focussed on the design of the quantitative part.
But but just for that reason, I've been shy about this.
But now of course, we are. So, yeah,
so basically we have kind of comparable grounds for quantitative and qualitative sample on the qualitative sample is much smaller for obvious reasons.
We have a sample of approximately 50 participants in total from two cohorts of twenty five from the younger cohort,
twenty five from the other cohort with a kind of a gender balance.
And, you know, we've been following them through in-depth interviews and focus groups as if they were very young.
And it's been extremely useful.
I mean, if I have to highlight something because I could, I could highlight the, you know, the quality of the research.
But, you know, because I haven't been very much involved in the in writing these papers.
But what I have seen a very big impact is in the in the dialogue with the policy makers because, you know, for example, when you want to think about.
I mean, just to give an example, in Peru, we have something called a bakery, which is a scholarship for higher education that is a national,
a nationwide programme, but it's a very selective and very selective programme.
So only those that have the highest court attempting to make it and assuming conditional on being from a public school.
So even though only a few of them have utterly obtained this scholarship,
you know we can interview those few people comparing them also with people that maybe even apply but didn't get the scholarship.
And. It's really interesting because, for instance, the government had information about the impact of the caricature,
but this is a completely different story when you have the chance to talk to them,
to play to those that have used their scholarship and had the chance to really tell you why you might be working or why not or not.
So in the dialogue with the policymakers especially useful, I was giving the example of a public programme.
But in general, when we have discussions about child work and educational trajectories,
trajectories to the labour market, so we have defined the quantitative data.
But, you know, you really need to understand what is driving the results, and for that, the continuation of the qualitative data is huge.
I know you've had some quite significant ethical concerns and considerations.
And one of the one of the challenges I think that we're all facing now is that the whole world of ethics is really becoming very it's becoming a,
you know, it's it's the culture of ethics is very strident about how you deal with certain problems in particular,
for example,
the requirement that you report any troubling situations and in troubling incidents and so on that you encounter in the field and in some context,
reporting to authorities isn't necessarily going to make the situation any better.
It may actually exacerbate the situation.
So it's not as straightforward as it might seem when you're, you know, you or I, I'll be putting requirements on you.
And I was just wondering if if you have anything to share about your experience of of the sort of ethics of the research over the years,
whether they've been consistent, you know, typical problems or whether or how you've dealt with them,
whether there are some that you felt were really unresolvable or I know you are
for some have mentioned when you say goodbye to people at the end of the study,
it's not really goodbye because they have your phone number and they phone up and they keep on fighting up and they have problems.
So does this pose a challenge? But the people have had an even closer relationship than in longitudinal study, for example.
There are lots of issues that have emerged.
So I think what one aspect is that, you know, we've been with this family for 15 years and probably what is going to be more than that.
So in the in the act, in fact, in the last visit, officially, we had to say goodbye in a way because why?
Because it's the constant fear that we ask them to sign the wrong one.
It said that this study was going to last 15 years.
I mean, don't worry, we're only going to come here every three to four years and the longer that.
And if we have something new, we're going to tell you.
And when I get your reminder and be like, you know, it was not a surprise that we were coming back for 15 years, but during and the last visit,
we kind of we kind of said goodbye because we had to, but we also told them we might come back and we would like to continue with this stay.
We try to keep the door open in a way because we knew it was very likely that we were going to come back and say,
No, no, we're going to be able to say goodbye. I mean, I guess at some point for the older cohort,
they're probably going to take the decision for burial because this is becoming even though the attrition rate is low in the small sample as it goes.
Maybe, maybe we're going to have to say at some point, OK, this is the last time a, you know,
we we ask you for some time, but also the fact that we know we go, we visit them every time.
So I mean, something important to many mentioned at the beginning is that we have this data set of ethical,
not just only ethical cases, but in general difficult cases that feel you need to remember before you go and knock on the door again.
You have to remember the last time we came, you know, even the small things like, you know,
the person, for some reason we forceps and then with upset with the comments of that.
So every time we go back again, that is a form that has gone Tusk's comments about ethical potential ethical concerns.
I mean, it can be something as small. It can be something bigger like, you know, if we went if in the last round the mother asked us for help,
it could be for many, for many, for many things.
I know if there is a disabled person in the house and they want to know how they can access a wheelchair,
and sometimes they don't know that it is possible to access one.
They just need to register, but they don't know what to register. So we we make sure that.
So what? We have this information. First of all, the numerator we ask him to ask him or ask her if it's something that can wait.
Take notes and then get back to the supervisor in the field and their supervisor gets back to the field manager in Lima.
And if in many respects, to the research team in Lima and we try to find our way,
sometimes the problem can be solved locally because the numerator of experience experiences they know,
they already know, for instance, how you can register to obtain a doctor in the wheelchair, for instance.
So but they still have to let us know that that's happening, and then we take note of that.
So the next time we come, we know that that happened. But also because we need to keep up with our work if we said.
I cannot I am taking note of this. And then we don't follow up.
I mean, that would be bad for us as individual families, but also it would be bad in terms of our strategy because if we come back,
if four years later and they say, you promise to help me with this, with this problem and you didn't.
So I mean, there are these two aspects that we need to to balance.
I will say that in general, overall, I mean, of course, there are things that we might have improved.
I think, you know, nowadays there's more. Maybe more and more attention in terms of the medical procedures you use in the field.
I do. I feel very proud of the of the protocols that were established before I joined, to be honest.
I mean, Mary and the team had to kind of re-establish this, basically.
We've been trying to improve, prove something, but I have to say that, you know, if I seen nowadays,
what what do you require compared to what we've been doing over the last since the beginning?
I think, you know, there is more freedom we may improve. But overall, a man in the team did a great work.
Perhaps we don't have more questions I would like to hear, and not just from from Marion Island, but from the rest of the OnLive team.
Whether you would have just a sentence of advice for researchers who were embarking on a cohort
or embarking on a work on a cohort and what you see from the breadth of your experience,
what your advice and suggestions to them would be. Gosh, give you a moment, partnerships, relationships are absolutely fundamental,
and I think the more I think about reflecting back on challenges that we faced that need to be, you have to be incredibly flexible.
I often tell people that the Brexit referendum 2016 in this country was the single biggest
threat to young lives because we were about to have our most expensive ever year of field work,
which meant that we were. The funding was going from Oxford to the study countries and the pound collapsed overnight.
It's not hundreds of thousands of pounds of budget.
We couldn't have adjusted and dealt with. Fact if it wasn't for the fact that we had long term relationships and partnerships of trust,
we immediately contacted everybody in the team and said, we're going to have to make cuts.
What we can to do about this sort of flexibility, the trust, the adjustment and all of that was possible.
And I'm really alarmed by studies that try to be longitudinal using companies, including companies that have flown in from overseas.
I don't think we would have anything like the level of success in terms of low attrition in terms of the
quality of the data in terms of the respect towards the study country of the participants in the study.
Almost any aspect you want to mention is only really come about through the partnership approach.
It's not always been easy. We don't always agree.
Economists sometimes try to talk to them as apologists, and they don't understand each other at all because we all use funny words.
Others don't understand, but could always tease out, well, they use.
Yes, exactly. We at least we talk to people and we use words, and they just use all these numbers if somehow that mattered in the world.
But anyway, we've yeah,
it's really important and I think people underestimate and I'm really worried when I see requirement donors to set the study up and go with it.
They just give you like a six month inception period. It's not long enough.
You must have time to build good relationships and and learn about each other.
I think that's to me, that's the single most important thing. I think that you're right about that.
This is a very good point. There's a multidisciplinary component of there's been a drought, particularly in the last five rounds.
Probably seen them. Yeah, that's been very, very positive thing.
I mean, that makes you kind of feel that you've got a role in you contributing bits, you know?
But you're lucky. We've had a good group to work with.
The two institutions got all without being embattled together.
But yeah, I think that's a good point.
If I can, I mean, just a couple of ideas.
I mean, I think it's very important that you work with people, I mean, offend our group from the point of view of research, it's excellent.
But we wouldn't have survived if you know the group of people really didn't care.
You know, like when I joined the team, to be honest, I didn't know that, you know, two years after we collected data,
when received a phone call from a participant asking for information or asking for help.
And we have a protocol to deal with the situation. But you know, you can say we are not collecting data this year, but you have to and and you know,
they have our information, our contact information in the consent forms and in the consultation dates.
So they contact us, you know, the.
Enough to deal with the situations the ethical crisis due to the brought the moment in which we are collecting data.
You have to deal with those situations.
This has nothing to do with research, of course, in a way, but it's probably the most important thing you end up doing when you're collecting data.
And actually, you have to care if you don't care.
Maybe that's also why we're successful with attrition, but surely, but you have to care.
And the second, yes, final advice is to take photos because I and I don't know exactly to what extent this helps.
I'm pretty sure that it helps a lot like they know that they're receiving that photo from the last round and
they want to keep that photo and we've seen in their walls that they they have a special place for the photos.
So they argue that that's a very good idea,
not just just obviously to show to anybody because it's because we couldn't shoot, because that would be the problem.
But the photos to go back to the that we give back to the family that aren't people that don't whose idea it was, it was a bad idea.
And any other colleagues will rise anything to.
Or shall we close by saying a huge thank you and we look forward to reading even more than the 400 papers that have already ActionScript read this.
They say a handful of small countries, when I feel some people are telling delegates if they start using the data, if they have in race is public.
Well, a huge thank you. We look forward to the next in this series.
And congratulations on the incredible success you've achieved both in Peru, but in my DNA study.
Thanks, everyone. And.