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SINGAPORE \u2013 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.<\/p>\n
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\u2019s National Research Foundation, the work began in April and comes amid growing concerns\u00a0over the mental health, lifestyle and digital habits of youth.<\/p>\n
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.<\/p>\n
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.<\/p>\n
One example of early childhood research\u00a0is Singapore\u2019s largest pre-birth cohort study \u2013 Growing Up In Singapore Towards Healthy Outcomes (GUSTO) \u2013 which tracked more than 1,200 mothers and their\u00a0children since 2008 to understand how conditions during pregnancy and early childhood affect\u00a0their health and development.<\/p>\n
Comparable longitudinal studies on adolescence are limited, Tan said, particularly in the Asian context.<\/p>\n
\u201cA lot of what we understand comes from cross-sectional studies, so it tells us what\u2019s happening at that point in time. But it doesn\u2019t really tell us how young people develop,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
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.<\/p>\n
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.<\/p>\n
Tan said the initiative addresses an over-reliance on Western data, which may not fully reflect Asian and Singaporean social and cultural contexts.<\/p>\n
\u201cOur household compositions and structures are different. Our children are also raised really differently… I can\u2019t translate findings from another population and say this is definitely applicable to someone here,\u201d said Tan.<\/p>\n
Existing adolescent-focused studies in Singapore led by the National Institute of Education, called DREAMS<\/span><\/a>, study developmental outcomes related to school.<\/p>\n Johan Eriksson, executive director of A*STAR IHDP, said the new research initiative takes a broader approach by studying other areas related to development.<\/p>\n Researchers hope to better understand, for instance, how sleep, nutrition, exercise and screen habits affect brain development. The study will also investigate how urban design, green spaces and climate affect adolescents\u2019 physical and psychological well-being.<\/p>\n Desiree Phua, a senior\u00a0scientist at A*STAR, said adolescents today are growing up in a hybrid reality, where the distinction between the online and offline world is increasingly blurred.<\/p>\n As social media platforms become an important space for connection and formation of self-identity, Phua said further studies are needed to see how digital media use affects youth.<\/p>\n \u201cWe cannot just look at how much they are using, we must go deeper to understand their experiences. We want to understand how they are navigating this new reality,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n A*STAR said Singapore is uniquely placed to study adolescent health in Asia.<\/p>\n One area is the effect of digital technology on young people. Local data shows that one in four youth aged 13 and 14 spends close to 10 hours a day on screens, while one in 10 spends at least four hours daily on social media alone.<\/p>\n Singapore\u2019s family and caregiving structures also differ from those of other nations.<\/p>\n Children here spend more time in childcare than those in many other developed countries. The GUSTO study found that about 63 per cent of local families receive support from non-parent caregivers such as grandparents or domestic workers.<\/p>\n The country\u2019s population is also becoming more diverse. Previous research has found that the proportion of transnational marriages more than doubled from 1984 to 2024. These families face lower socioeconomic status and have different parenting practices.<\/p>\n Other findings include ethnic differences in pre-schoolers\u2019 test scores and social-emotional well-being, which can widen over time.<\/p>\n Eriksson said insights on adolescent\u00a0development from the multi-ethnic population here could be useful beyond Singapore.<\/p>\n \u201cThe three main ethnic groups here form up to 50 per cent of the global population.\u00a0So you hope that this could also be globally relevant,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n SINGAPORE \u2013 A new $150 million national research programme will track 5,000 young people in Singapore over the next five years to better understand how…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":68467,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"fifu_image_url":"","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[2611],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-68466","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-buzz-headlines","wpcat-2611-id"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/68466","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=68466"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/68466\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/68467"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=68466"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=68466"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=68466"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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