The aim is to investigate longitudinal associations between thermal injuries and various demographic, social, familial and individual factors at different ages throughout childhood. Particular attention will be given to developmental and behavioural child-related exposures on burn outcome at various ages. Burn outcome will be divided into 3 age groups, 0-4.5y, 5-8.5 y and 9-11y. Adolescents will be looked at separately (16y).Children with repeated thermal injuries will be analysed separately.

Our 3 main hypotheses are:

1) Childen with poor coordination and higher scores on hyperactivity, conduct problems and general behavioural problems will be more likely to suffer from burns and scalds.

2) Child factors will be more predictive of thermal injuries compared to family and environmental factors.

3) Thermal injury patterns will vary with age and gender and gender trajectories will change with age. We expect boys to be more likely to suffer from burns during the pre-school period whereas girls will be more likely to suffer at school age when they start to help out with ironing, cooking etc.