CoChat
Sign Up
Cited by 77Hypothalamic control of reproductive hormonesAdolescent Sexual and Reproductive HealthHuman Health and Disease

Study protocol: the Childhood to Adolescence Transition Study (CATS)

Open access
Mundy, Lisa K, Simmons, Julian G, Allen, Nicholas B, Viner, Russell M, Bayer, Jordana K, Olds, Timothy, Williams, Jo, Olsson, Craig +8 more·2013·BMC Pediatrics
DOI 10.1186/1471-2431-13-160PMC PMC3852285
Open this paper in CoChat — free accountOpen PDF

Abstract

BACKGROUND: Puberty is a multifaceted developmental process that begins in late-childhood with a cascade of endocrine changes that ultimately lead to sexual maturation and reproductive capability. The transition through puberty is marked by an increased risk for the onset of a range of health problems, particularly those related to the control of behaviour and emotion. Early onset puberty is associated with a greater risk of cancers of the reproductive tract and cardiovascular disease. Previous studies have had methodological limitations and have tended to view puberty as a unitary process, with little distinction between adrenarche, gonadarche and linear growth. The Childhood to Adolescence Transition Study (CATS) aims to prospectively examine associations between the timing and stage of the different hormonally-mediated changes, as well as the onset and course of common health and behavioural problems that emerge in the transition from childhood to adolescence. The initial focus of CATS is on adrenarche, the first hormonal process in the pubertal cascade, which begins for most children at around 8 years of age. METHODS/DESIGN: CATS is a longitudinal population-based cohort study. All Grade 3 students (8-9 years of age) from a stratified cluster sample of schools in Melbourne, Australia were invited to take part. In total, 1239 students and a parent/guardian were recruited to participate in the study. Measures are repeated annually and comprise student, parent and teacher questionnaires, and student anthropometric measurements. A saliva sample was collected from students at baseline and will be repeated at later waves, with the primary purpose of measuring hormonal indices of adrenarche and gonadarche. DISCUSSION: CATS is uniquely placed to capture biological and phenotypic indices of the pubertal process from its earliest manifestations, together with anthropometric measures and assessment of child health and development. The cohort will provide rich detail of the development, lifestyle, external circumstances and health of children during the transition from childhood through to adolescence. Baseline associations between the hormonal measures and measures of mental health and behaviour will initially be examined cross-sectionally, and then in later waves longitudinally. CATS will make a unique contribution to the understanding of adrenarche and puberty in children's health and development.

The claims and statistics of this paper haven’t been checked yet.

Run the check — free, no account needed. It reads the open-access text and checks the sources it cites.

A few free checks a day · papers already verified open instantly · results are public

Integrity signals

Registry

Crossref · 10.1186/1471-2431-13-160

Cites

93 of 93 references verified0 citation errors · 0 not checkable

Statistics

Claims the paper makes

The claims and statistics of this paper haven’t been checked yet.

Run the check — free, no account needed. It reads the open-access text and checks the sources it cites.

A few free checks a day · papers already verified open instantly · results are public

Claims other papers make about this one

Each is checked against this paper’s own text: does it say what the citing paper says it does?

  • The study used a prospective longitudinal design with data from waves one, two and three of the Childhood to Adolescence Transition Study (CATS).

    “Data for this study were drawn from waves one (conducted in 2012), two (2013) and three (2014) of the Childhood to Adolescence Transition Study (CATS). This is a longitudinal cohort study with a broad focus on health, education and social adjustment as children transition through puberty.”

    From Electronic media use and academic performance in late childhood: A longitudinal study (2020) · cites this paper as [44]

Self-check

Percentages, sums and reported differences re-computed from the paper’s own numbers.

The self-check needs the paper’s full text.

Cites

Flagged first, then by citations

Research works printed but not linked: 2

  1. Charnov EL Life history invariants 1993 Oxford: Oxford University Press
  2. Stearns S The evolution of life histories 1992 Oxford: Oxford University Press

Cited by

Sorted by citations

Related

Authors
Mundy, L. K., Simmons, J. G., Allen, N. B., Viner, R. M., Bayer, J. K., Olds, T., Williams, J., Olsson, C., Romaniuk, H., Mensah, F., Sawyer, S. M., Degenhardt, L., Alati, R., Wake, M., Jacka, F., & Patton, G. C.
Affiliations
  • Murdoch Children's Research Institute (AU)
  • The University of Melbourne (AU)
  • University College London (GB)
  • La Trobe University (AU)
  • Royal Children's Hospital (AU)
  • The University of Queensland (AU)
  • Deakin University (AU)
Corresponding author
Mundy, Lisa K
ORCID
Venue
BMC Pediatrics
Publisher
Springer Science and Business Media LLC
Published
2013-10-08
Volume
13
Issue
1
Pages
160-160
ISSN
1471-2431 (ISSN-L)
DOI
10.1186/1471-2431-13-160
PMC
PMC3852285
OpenAlex
W2154286936
Cited by
77
References
92
Citations by year
2026: 2 · 2025: 7 · 2024: 4 · 2023: 6 · 2022: 7 · 2021: 7 · 2020: 12 · 2019: 7 · 2018: 6 · 2017: 4 · 2016: 3 · 2015: 8 · 2014: 4
Type
conference abstract
Language
en
Open access
Licence
Locations
  • BMC Pediatrics (publishedVersion, cc-by)
  • Europe PMC (PubMed Central) (publishedVersion, cc-by)
  • PubMed Central (publishedVersion, cc-by)
  • PubMed (publishedVersion)
  • UniSA Research Outputs Repository (University of South Australia) (acceptedVersion, other-oa)
  • Minerva Access (University of Melbourne) (submittedVersion, cc-by)
  • Adelaide Research & Scholarship (AR&S) (University of Adelaide) (submittedVersion, cc-by)
  • UCL Discovery (University College London) (submittedVersion)
  • Swinburne figshare (Swinburne University of Technology) (submittedVersion)
Funders
  • State Government of Victoria
  • Medical Research Council
  • National Health and Medical Research Council (1010018)
Topics
  • Health Sciences › Medicine › Reproductive Medicine › Hypothalamic control of reproductive hormones
  • Health Sciences › Health Professions › General Health Professions › Adolescent Sexual and Reproductive Health
  • Health Sciences › Medicine › Pediatrics, Perinatology and Child Health › Human Health and Disease
Keywords
puberty, adrenarche, gonadarche, precocious puberty, transition to adolescence, salivary hormones, child mental health, child behavior, linear growth, school-based cohort, longitudinal cohort
MeSH terms
Adolescent, Anthropometry, Australia, Mental Disorders, Child, Clinical Protocols, Dehydroepiandrosterone, Female, Humans, Longitudinal Studies, Male, Psychiatric Status Rating Scales, Saliva, Testosterone, Adolescent Development, Adrenarche

About these checks

Registry, retraction, Cites and statistics results are computed, not judged, with one exception: a printed reference that no index lists is read once by a model before it counts as a citation error. Claims are extracted by a model and kept only when their quote appears verbatim in the text; each cited source is then checked, with a model’s help, for whether it says what the claim relies on. Those verdicts can be wrong — read the claim’s quote and the cited source before relying on one.

Statistics and arithmetic are recomputed, not judged.

Confidence bands are shown only for fields calibrated on our annotated test set. None is calibrated yet, so no band is shown.

What counts as a claim ›How we measure confidence ›How we check this ›

Are you an author, or do you see a problem with this page? Request a review