Health and education outcomes from adolescence to adulthood for young people with neurodisability and their peers: protocol for a population-based cohort study using linked hospital and education data from England

Introduction Children and young people with neurodisability (conditions affecting the brain or nervous system, creating functional impairment, eg, autism, learning disabilities, epilepsy, cerebral palsy or attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder) have more complex health and educational needs than their peers, contributing to higher healthcare use and special educational needs (SEN) provision. To guide policy and improve services, evidence is needed on how health and education support and outcomes change with age for adolescents with and without neurodisability. Methods and analysis Using the Education and Child Health Insights from Linked Data (ECHILD) database, which links health and education data across England, we will follow adolescents from the start of secondary school (Year 7) into early adulthood. We will classify children with and without neurodisability recorded in hospital and education records before Year 7, compare their sociodemographic characteristics and describe trends in health and educational outcomes throughout secondary school. We will estimate rates of planned and unplanned healthcare contacts by year of age (11-22 years old), and we will examine changes in trends before, during and after transition to adult healthcare. We will also estimate the proportion of adolescents with school-recorded SEN provision and rates of school absences and exclusions by year of age (11-15 years old) for the two groups. We will explore variation in outcomes by neurodisability subgroup and sociodemographic characteristics and contextualise the findings using existing interview and survey data from children, young people and parents/carers generated in the Health Outcomes of young People throughout Education (HOPE) research programme. Ethics and dissemination Ethics approval for analyses of the ECHILD database has been granted previously (20/EE/0180). Findings will be shared with academics, policymakers and stakeholders, and published in open-access journals. Code and metadata will be shared in the ECHILD GitHub repository.