
Cannabis Cohort Research Consortium (CCRC)
Synopsis
The Cannabis Cohorts Research Consortium (CCRC) is a collaboration which stemmed from the need to better address important questions about the relationship between cannabis, other drug use, life-course outcomes and mental health in children and young adults. The CCRC is a multi-organisational and multi-disciplinary international collaboration which brings together researchers from some of the largest and longest-running longitudinal studies in Australia and New Zealand. The CCRC aims to achieve its goals by involving partners in capacity building activities, and by providing capacity to allow collaborative work to proceed to high-level grant application stage. Recent work has focused on harmonising and pooling data across individual cohorts. This approach provides a number of potential advantages including efficiency in the use of existing data; the capacity to bring together expert knowledge from across a range of disciplinary boundaries; increased opportunity for knowledge translation and dissemination; increased generalisability of findings; and, the opportunity to answer questions which cannot be answered in individual cohorts.
Summary
Study name | Cannabis Cohort Research Consortium |
Study abbreviation | CCRC |
Current principal investigator/s | Prof Richard Mattick, A/Prof John Horwood, Prof David Fergusson, Prof Jake Najman, Prof George Patton, Prof John Toumbourou, Prof Craig Olsson, Dr Delyse Hutchinson, Dr Edmund Silins, Prof Louisa Degenhardt |
Current project managers | Prof Richard Mattick, Dr Delyse Hutchinson, Dr Edmund Silins |
Cohort representative (study contact) | Prof Richard Mattick |
Postal address |
National Drug and Alcohol Research Centre, University of New South Wales, Sydney Sydney, NSW 2052 |
Phone | +612 9385 0333 |
r.mattick@unsw.edu.au | |
Primary Institution | University of New South Wales (UNSW) |
Collaborating Institution/s |
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Major funding sources | NHMRC |
Study website | ndarc.med.unsw.edu.au |
Key reference | Hutchinson, D. M., Silins, E., Mattick, R. P., Patton, G. C., Fergusson, D. M., Hayatbakhsh, R., Toumbourou, J.W., Olsson, C.O., Najman, J.M., Spry, E., Tait, R. J., Degenhardt, L., Swift, W., Butrterworth, P., L. John Horwood (2015). How can data harmonisation benefit mental health research? An example of The Cannabis Cohorts Research Consortium. Australian & New Zealand Journal of Psychiatry, 49(4), 317-323. doi: 10.1177/0004867415571169 |
Are data available outside study team? | Yes. Case by case basis. |
Study focus | The collaborative work between researchers uses existing data to better understand the link between cannabis, other drug use, life-course outcomes and mental health in children and young adults. |
Sampling frame |
A range of cohorts are involved in the CCRC including: the Australian Temperament Project (ATP), the Christchurch Health and Development Study (CHDS), the Mater-University of Queensland Study of Pregnancy (MUSP), the Personality and Total Health (PATH) Through Life Project, the Western Australian Pregnancy Cohort (Raine) Study, and 2000 Stories – Victorian Adolescent Health Cohort Study (VAHCS). To date, analyses have been conducted with:
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Year commenced | Varied between individual studies |
Commencement sample | Data integrated from these cohort studies involves over 7,000 young people. To date, across various cohorts (up to n=4), we have harmonised a wide range of substance use, psychosocial and other measures (n≈35) at ages which span adolescence (≈13-17 years), young adulthood (≈18-25 years), and adulthood (≈28-30 years). |
Intergenerational? | Varied between individual studies |
Imaging | Varied between individual studies |
Linkage | Varied between individual studies |
Biosamples? | Varied between individual studies |
Waves
Wave | Year | Age (mean, range) | Eligible sample |
---|---|---|---|
1 | Varied between individual studies |