The Study: Why?

In 1939 the infant death rate in the UK was 62 per 1000 births. In modern terms this equates to the infant death rate currently seen in the most deprived parts of Africa. Sir James Spence, then Professor of Child Health in Newcastle (the first such appointment in England) was able to identify that the majority of the deaths in infancy were a result of infection. The high rate in Newcastle was also compounded by the large number of excessively poor households.
 
The outbreak of war prevented any immediate research, but in 1947 Spence and his team began the Thousand Families Study. The original objective was to study, for 1 year, babies born in Newcastle and find out why they contracted so many, and such severe infections. The idea was to look at what circumstances in the family and household led to this level of ill-health. This was a novel idea and was revolutionary in the history of epidemiological studies of child health.