Abstract
This report describes the baseline results for two samples involved in the Parents as First Teachers evaluation: Dunedin and Gisborne. The report describes the gender of the children, parental ages, ethnicity, education levels, socio-economic status, marital status, income, literacy skills and the language used in the home, planned use of health and preschool services, pregnancy and childbirth and other background factors. Also described are some differences between the Dunedin and Gisborne samples, which indicate that the Gisborne sample was considerably disadvantaged in comparison with the Dunedin sample.