We are setting up the Kids’ Environment and Health Cohort to allow researchers to study how local environments in and around children’s homes and schools impact children’s health and education in England. The Kids’ Environment and Health Cohort will be a national data resource, containing routinely collected health, education, vital statistics, and Census data from all children born in England from 2006 onwards, combined with environmental datasets. The Kids’ Environment and Health Cohort will also hold hospital and environmental data for mothers up to a year before birth, to allow researchers to study how environmental factors impact children while they are still in the womb.

What datasets will be included in the Kids’ Environment and Health Cohort?

For the Stage 1, the following data will be linked:

• Office for National Statistics (ONS) birth and death registration data
• Census 2011 and 2021 data for mothers for children born within two years of each Census
• Department for Environment Food and Rural Affairs modelled Annual Air Pollution data
• Met Office data on air temperature
• Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government: Energy Performance Certificate data
• Valuation Office Agency data on property type and valuation
• Access to private gardens and public greenspaces

For stage 2 of KEHC, the aspiration is to link the cohort to health and education data. This is subject to approvals from NHS England and the Department for Education. You can learn more about the details and data contained in each of the above datasets by clicking on the links. 

There are a number of reasons why the Kids’ Environment and Health Cohort will contain data for all children in England:

• The Kids’ Environment and Health Cohort will allow researchers to look at how exposure to different environmental factors varies for children living in different areas of England, and how this has changed over time.
• Including all children born in England will minimise selection bias (which happens when only some groups of people participate in research studies) and loss to follow-up (when people drop out of research studies). This is particularly important since some groups are more likely not to participate in research, including children who grow up in poorer families. Including all children in England ensures research findings are applicable to all children, not just those who are more likely to participate in research studies.  
• Many environmental contaminants, including air pollution, lead to small increased risks to health (compared to exposure to parental smoking, for example). Therefore, researchers need large groups of children to estimate these risks accurately. (For example, the increase in relative risk of adverse health outcomes due to exposure to air pollution may be small, but since the number of children exposed is large, this means that many children are affected.)
• The nationwide coverage of Kids’ Environment and Health Cohort in a highly populated country such as England will allow researchers to examine risk factors for outcomes which are severe but relatively uncommon, such as stillbirth or infant mortality
• The Kids’ Environment and Health Cohort will allow researchers to study groups of children who are particularly vulnerable to environmental exposures, including children born prematurely and children with serious long-term conditions or disability. Since a relatively small proportion of children fall into these categories, large study populations are required.

We are working closely with the Office for National Statistics (ONS) to ensure data are kept safe. 

The different datasets in the cohort will be linked by experienced staff at ONS, who link these types of data as part of their job. They will only use the minimum amount of information required to link the datasets and assess the quality of the linkages.

Researchers will not be able to see exactly where children live or go to school. Instead, the ONS will use a secure system of linking data from birth records, safely de-identifying the data before it is made available to researchers. This allows the Kids’ Environment and Health Cohort to be matched with other environmental data over time, for example, information about air quality, green spaces, or traffic levels in different neighbourhoods, without revealing children’s actual addresses to researchers.

ONS will match environmental data to home and school postcodes or unique property reference number (UPRN), a code used to identify every dwelling in England. All postcodes, UPRNs, and school location identifiers will be stored securely and separately by the ONS, and will never be accessible to researchers.

Researchers will only see the final, linked data showing environmental conditions around where children live and go to school, not the locations themselves. This ensures children’s privacy is fully protected while still allowing important research on how their environments affect their health and education.

Once linked, the data in the cohort will be stored in the ONS Secure Research Service, subject to approval from data owners.  The ONS Secure Research Services is a national trusted (UKSA accredited) research environment, where accredited researchers will access the de-identified data. You can read more about the ONS Secure Research Service here. The ONS Secure Research Service works using a framework called ‘5 safes’ to keep data safe. You can read more about the 5 safes here. 

Safe Data: data is treated to protect any confidentiality concerns. 

The Kids’ Environment and Health Cohort will be held in the ONS Secure Research Service. The data in the cohort will not contain any personal identifiers like NHS numbers, dates of birth, or full postcodes. Researchers who want to use the data will have to apply for access and, if approved, they’ll receive only the data they need for their project.

Safe Projects: research projects are approved by data owners for the public good. 

The final access arrangements are being worked through, however we explain here what is likely to be required. Researchers will have to submit an application to use the data through the Project Accreditation Service for the Secure Research Service (PASS). Applications will be assessed by the UK Statistics Authority on behalf of the Research Accreditation Panel. This assessment includes feasibility checks, data-owner approval, and ethics review by the Centre for Applied Data Ethics. Researchers will need to show that their project aligns with the purposes for creating the Kids’ Environment and Health Cohort, explain how their findings will benefit the public, especially in terms of child health and education, and justify the data they need to answer their research question.

Safe People: researchers must be trained and authorised to use data safely. 

Any researchers who want to use the data will need to be approved by the ONS, which means they’ll have had training in handling sensitive data and passed an exam showing they know how to keep data safe.

Safe Settings: use of data in secure environments to prevent unauthorised use. 

The data will only be accessed through the ONS’s Secure Research Service (SRS), which has approved access points. The specific access points used may vary depending on the the project.

Safe Outputs: screened and approved outputs that are non-disclosive.

Any results or findings from the research based on the Kids’ Environment and Health Cohort data will be checked by the ONS staff to make sure that an individual’s identity cannot be deduced.

The Secure Research Service (SRS) is a service provided by the Office for National Statistics (ONS) in the UK. It’s a globally recognized service that follows a set of principles to ensure the safe use of data. The SRS is designed to give accredited researchers secure access to de-identified, unpublished data to work on research projects that benefit the public. You can read more about the ONS Secure Research Service here.

We will also provide links and summary reports of all research conducted using the Kids’ Environment and Health Cohort on our website under Publications and Documentation. 

Please have a look at your data subject rights section on the ONS website.

We are currently in the process of developing the cohort, including drafting data sharing agreements with data providers. We will post further information about how to apply to access the Kids’ Environment and Health Cohort in due course. You can keep up to date with our website and social media channels (@kenvhc on Twitter, @kids_env_health_cohort on Instagram) as we will posting all updates via these platforms.