Investing in early childhood development has been shown to have long-term benefits. Effective early childhood policies and programmes are central to nurturing a competitive, creative and healthy future workforce in Hong Kong as the city strives to become a knowledge-based economy and a hub for innovation. To date, however, there is no comprehensive and representative large-scale database on the development of preschoolers in Hong Kong that can be used to guide early childhood research and policy development.

The Hong Kong CHILD Development Longitudinal Study (HK-CHILD) is the first city-representative early childhood longitudinal study in Hong Kong and aims to provide a comprehensive picture of young children’s development in the SAR and the factors that shape it. The study will follow the development of a representative sample of approximately 3,000 preschool-aged children for three consecutive years as they progress through kindergarten from Kindergarten Level 1 (K1) to Kindergarten Level 3 (K3), focusing particularly on their holistic development, emotional and behavioral status, and physical health. Data will also be collected on children’s family and home environments, classrooms, and schools to better understand the contextual factors that promote early developmental outcomes. In developing a robust database containing high-quality evidence on children’s early development in Hong Kong, the data and insights derived from HK-CHILD will serve both as a basis for informing early childhood policies and programmes, as well as an invaluable resource for parents, caregivers, and educators to support and promote the positive development of children.

HK-CHILD is funded by the Hong Kong Research Grants Council Collaborative Research Fund (Project Code: C7098-23GF, Project Title: Early Childhood Development in Hong Kong: A Longitudinal Study) and led by a multidisciplinary team of scholars from the University of Hong Kong, the Chinese University of Hong Kong, City University of Hong Kong, and New York University Shanghai. The baseline data collection will begin in early 2025, and a second and third wave will follow in the 2025/26 and 2026/27 school years, respectively.