The Life Project

How does childhood and inequality influence the course of our lives?

In 1946 scientists started tracking thousands of British children born during one cold week in March and have established similar studies roughly every 12 years since, building a bedrock of research about British health, wellbeing and life chances.

The five birth cohort studies of over 70,000 people have influenced sixty years of social science, government legislation, medical and educational theory and practice. This simple act of observing human life has irrevocably altered our understanding of what inequality and health mean.

Science journalist and Nature editor Helen Pearson has now brought these stories together for the first time, and at the RSA she shares some of the key findings brought to light by this remarkable body of work.