Lay summary
This study proposes to investigate the impact of early-life and childhood events on the respiratory health of Pacific youth aged 18-19 years. These youth will be drawn from the Pacific Islands Families Study birth cohort born at Middlemore Hospital in South Auckland in 2000, and thus the proposed study builds on 16 years of rich longitudinal data collected on this cohort. In spite of inevitable attrition, existing data and planned clinical assessments will enable us to obtain reliable effect estimates of both early-life risk and resilience factors on the respiratory health of this vulnerable population group. Measuring the impact of possible interventions upon these largely modifiable factors over all Pacific youth in NZ is also possible, due to the completeness of early-life data. The study addresses a significant health inequality in New Zealand given the disproportionate burden of respiratory disease borne by Pacific peoples.