MatCHNet will tackle three key research challenges to provide baseline knowledge and appropriate methods for cross-country analysis of national policies affecting child and maternal health. The key objectives are:

1. To identify priority national policies across the 4 UK nations that affect maternal and child health.
2. To ascertain what administrative longitudinal data can be linked and harmonised across the 4 UK countries, including health, census, education and social care data.
3. To determine suitable methods that can be used to evaluate national policies and make cross-country comparisons.

The network will focus upon three policy intervention periods during the early child life course: i) during pregnancy; ii) infancy; and iii) pre-school period.