Consortium on Individual Development
The YOUth cohort started as part of the Consortium on Individual Development (CID). Although most children develop and find their way into society without major problems, some do not. CID aims to advance our knowledge and understanding of why some children thrive and others don't.
The aim of CID
CID examines how the environment (family characteristics, parents and siblings, peers, and broader societal influences including media) and child characteristics (genetic makeup, temperament, and pre- and peri-natal factors) affect the development of social competence and behavioural control.
Since May 2013, CID unites top-tier researchers from several disciplines, each with unique and relevant expertise in development research, working at seven Dutch universities and University Medical Centers. The broad knowledge base on child development, including social sciences, humanities and bio(medical) sciences, is unique to CID.
Funding
CID was one of the six teams to receive a grant from the Dutch Science Foundation (NWO) to collaborate over a period of ten years. The grant is part of the Gravitation Programme by the Ministry of Education, Culture and Science (OCW) to fund highly ambitious research programs that have the potential to bring about international break throughs.
Work Packages
CID research is grouped into four Work Packages (WPs), each focusing on specific aspects of development. WP1 focusses on brain development. WP2 on the effect of interventions on child behaviour. Then WP3 focusses on generational transmission in families. And WP4 complements all studies with advanced mathematical modelling and animal research.
The YOUth cohort is part of WP1 and part of the Utrecht University research theme Dynamics of Youth and Child Health of UMC Utrecht. Within WP 1 YOUth addresses questions regarding the interrelationships between brain and behaviour, and how associations might develop as a function of age, sex, genetic influences, and environmental exposure.
All CID cohort studies
Several large-scale longitudinal cohort studies support the different work packages. Two new longitudinal children cohort studies were implemented in 2013: the Utrecht YOUth cohort (part of WP1) and the Leiden based intervention cohort L-CID (part of WP2). In addition, four existing cohorts are part of WP3 on generational transmission in families: TRAILS (Groningen), Generation-R (Rotterdam), RADAR (Utrecht) and NTR (Amsterdam).
