Given the length of time the study has run, it is perhaps surprising to note that the Dunedin Study was not originally conceived of as a long-term study, particularly as resources were very scarce in the beginning. Indeed, data collection during the early years of the study was helped by contributions from many members of the Dunedin community—doctors who gave freely of their time to conduct medical assessments, volunteers from the wider Dunedin community who helped with other assessments and logistics, schools who gave children a day off to attend the assessments, as well as businesses who allowed parents time off from work to accompany their children to the assessments. A local church even allowed their Sunday school facilities to be used as the study’s assessment space at ages 3, 5, 7, 9, and 11 years.
