The study’s leadership philosophy has always been straightforward “Treat people as you would like to be treated.” This is a deceptively simple notion. In reality it means devoting a lot of thought to all aspects of what it must be like to be a Study member, most obviously on the day of assessment, but also beyond that, and planning accordingly. In so doing we constantly strive to place ourselves in the Study members’ shoes to better understand their needs and preferences and to accommodate these. For example, knowing that many Study members were parents of young children at the age 32 assessment, we converted our staff tearoom into a comfortable crèche area and employed a part-time professional early childhood care worker to look after Study members children, on site, if this was requested.
