Researchers assessed inclusion in ECHILD, the national linkage of hospital, school and social care records for children in England, using four cohorts born between September 1984 and March 2023. Over 90% of children with a hospital birth record linked to a school record (93% for births from 2014), and 88% of pupils in 2001/02 linked to a patient record (96% for those born in 2019/20), giving 21 million linked individuals. Inclusion was lower for children in London, in more deprived areas, and with recorded ethnicity other than White.
Why it is interesting: Puts numbers on who is missing from a whole-population child data linkage, showing the shortfall is patterned by deprivation and ethnicity.