SINGAPORE – A new $150 million national research programme will track 5,000 young people in Singapore over the next five years to better understand how factors such as digital media use and urban spaces shape adolescence.
Led by the A*STAR Institute for Human Development and Potential (IHDP), the longitudinal research will study those aged 10 to 24. Funded by Singapore’s National Research Foundation, the work began in April and comes amid growing concerns over the mental health, lifestyle and digital habits of youth.
Announcing the initiative on July 13 at a briefing, A*STAR said it will work closely with the Ministry of Education and more than 1,000 researchers across disciplines and other partners.
Rhea Tan, one of the A*STAR scientists involved in the project, said the adolescent period is a second critical window in child development, apart from early childhood, which has been studied extensively here.
One example of early childhood research is Singapore’s largest pre-birth cohort study – Growing Up In Singapore Towards Healthy Outcomes (GUSTO) – which tracked more than 1,200 mothers and their children since 2008 to understand how conditions during pregnancy and early childhood affect their health and development.
Comparable longitudinal studies on adolescence are limited, Tan said, particularly in the Asian context.
“A lot of what we understand comes from cross-sectional studies, so it tells us what’s happening at that point in time. But it doesn’t really tell us how young people develop,” she said.
Following people from childhood to adulthood helps researchers get a clearer picture of how resilience is developed, for instance, and what drives risk, said Tan, to understand when intervention makes the most impact.
As such, the initiative will build on and connect several existing Singapore birth and youth cohorts, including GUSTO and iAdoRe, a study of about 1,200 secondary school students that aims to better understand child health during adolescence.
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