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A practical guide to longitudinal studies: Australian Longitudinal Study on Women’s Health
Deborah Loxton
Article Text
This special edition (ISBN 978-0-9775742-9-2) of the International Journal of Multiple Research Approaches is a practical guide to the development and management of longitudinal studies written by researchers and personnel who have been running the Australian Longitudinal Study on Women's Health for over ten years.
Internationally, longitudinal research has become increasingly important to both the academic community and state policy makers. Longitudinal studies allow causal relationships to be examined and are critical to understanding issues associated with ageing. While the famous Seven Up TV series is probably the best known, longitudinal studies can include many thousands of participants (eg the UK ‘Million Women' study). However, there is currently a gap in the research methodology literature for a single volume that offers direction and advice about how the practical challenges of running longitudinal research studies can be met. This series endeavours to address this gap in knowledge using the Australian Longitudinal Study on Women's Health as a case study throughout the eleven papers presented in this edition.
The Australian Longitudinal Study on Women's Health (also known as Women's Health Australia) is a population-based mailed survey, which examines the health of Australian women over a 20 year period. The project was designed to explore factors that influence health among women who are broadly representative of the entire Australian population and takes a comprehensive view of all aspects of health throughout the lifespan. The first main data collection occurred in 1996, when a random sample of over 40,000 women was recruited into three cohorts, then aged 18-23, 45-50 and 70-75 years. Subsequent data collections were undertaken so that one cohort is now surveyed each year, according to the schedule provided in Table 1.
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