Dr Jane Maddock takes a look at diet – what it is, how and why it’s hard to measure and analyse, and why bother studying it at all.

Dr David Bann discusses physical activity and the launch of CLOSER’s comprehensive guide of the measures used to assess physical activity across six British longitudinal studies.

Andy Wong, Senior Research Study Manager at the MRC Unit for Lifelong Health and Ageing at UCL, talks about innovation and adaptation of data collection methods in the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic.

Prof Alissa Goodman, Director of CLS, discusses how CLS rapidly responded to the UK’s lockdown by launching a special COVID-19 survey, and looks at the first analyses of data.

Dr Apostolos Davillas and Prof Andrew Jones explore new evidence from the first three months of the UK response to the pandemic, highlighting the inequality in psychological distress in the UK.

Dr Eoin McElroy and Dr Vanessa Moulton discuss the launch of CLOSER’s new online cognitive measures guide for researchers. The guide provides a comprehensive description of 180 cognitive measures collected across five British birth cohorts.

Prof David Porteous and Prof Nic Timpson write about the process of data collection during the UK’s lockdown that led them to join forces and adapt the Generation Scotland and ALSPAC COVID-19 questionnaire for wider use in the UK and other cohorts.

Dr Bonamy Oliver writes about the challenge of family psychology in 2020, and what pre-pandemic efforts to conduct detailed family assessments suitable for large-scale studies have to offer in our latest COVID:19 Perspectives blog.

Prof Rebecca Hardy reflects on the challenges and opportunities of collecting data as a result of COVID-19, and shares her insights on what the future holds for longitudinal research.

George Alter, Research Professor and former director of ICPSR, writes about the new standard (SDTL) coming out of DDI and its relevance to improving the comprehensibility of harmonisation research.