Child trauma researchers should collaborate more. That was one of the messages of the meta-analysis my colleagues and I recently published. Until now, researchers have conducted a number of interesting studies but these were relatively small and used a wide variety of methods and designs, which doesn’t permit robust conclusions. By combining efforts (see also the ‘data sharing’ page) much more could be known faster.

Our message is still relevant, but there are also some beautiful examples of collaboration. One was presented by Nancy Kassam-Adams at the European Conference on Traumatic Stress Studies. With three colleagues from the US and Australia she is building a large database from datasets of individual researchers: the Child PTSD Prediction Project. The data of  2500 children have been included so far (that’s already 25 times the usual N in a study…). It will enable researchers to answer questions about early risk and protective factors, and about trajectories of posttraumatic stress symptoms in children. Go and collaborate!