Jean Golding is a British epidemiologist and founder of the groundbreaking "Children of the Nineties" study. She is Emeritus Professor of Paediatric and Perinatal Epidemiology at the University of Bristol.
Born in Hayle, Jean Golding's father Harry was a clerical worker on the Hayle docks, and her mother Peggy, whose enquiring mind inspired in her children a love of the natural world, was originally Canadian but came over to Cornwall as a child. The family moved to Plymouth, and then later to Chester but Golding has always felt Cornish:
"I count myself as Cornish even though I only lived there for the first seven years of my life"
Golding had a childhood troubled by illness, TB and polio, resulting in long periods of hospitalisation, and her education was hugely disrupted. But she credits her early challenges with her fearless work ethic as an adult, as well as her interest in observing other people, that has been a common theme throughout all her research.
"I was lucky, my scientific achievements developed in response to illnesses, stresses, and chance occurrences, and I am humbled by the success I've had"
In 1958 Golding got a place to study mathematics at Oxford. She later obtained a research fellowship University College, London to study the aetiology of neural tube defects.
In 1964 as a single mother with two young children and looking for work that could fit around childcare, Golding responded to an advert for a research assistant. The group would be looking at a 1958 UK study involving all the births in one week in that year, and all the stillbirths and deaths over a three month period, to try to uncover the cause of these deaths.
In 1990 Golding launched the "Children of the 90s" study -- the Avon Longitudinal Study of Parents and Children -- involving over 14,000 pregnant women. It would go on to follow the health and development of those parents, their children, and grandchildren, with the aim to discover how to improve the overall health and development of children.
The "Children of the 90s" study is a world-renowned resource containing over a million samples taken over the course of 30 years. It's a rich and unique source of data that has led to global discoveries about cot death, obesity, nut allergies, and how our grandparents' health can influence our own wellbeing. At the time of writing, the study is still being used to this day, to help identify those most at risk of developing long covid.
In 2012 Jean Golding was made an Officer of the Order of the British Empire for services to medical science.
