Social anxiety is characterised by avoidance of social situations and excessive fear of embarrassment. It can interfere with a person’s social life in a major way. People struggling with social anxiety report the feelings of nervousness while interacting with people of opposite gender for the first time and are judged as less likeable after the initial contact. They can also be seen as shy or withdrawn in a social setting, potentially disrupting their chances at initiating a conversation with a potential partner. All those traits can therefore make it difficult to enter a romantic relationship. Once they enter a romantic relationship, these traits might show a smaller or null effect on their relationship satisfaction, as the familiarity and closeness with their partner would make them less likely to struggle; however, all the traits characterising social anxiety may still negatively impact the relationship. To answer the question of whether social anxiety traits impact adult romantic relationships, the current study will investigate the effects of social phobia at age 17.5 on the participant’s satisfaction with their romantic relationship at 25.

Although there are several UK studies that consider the impacts of attending youth clubs on later life (e.g. Dibben, Playford and Mitchell 2017 and Berrie et al 2022), little longitudinal research has taken place in the UK, leaving a shortfall of robust evidence. Using data from four longitudinal cohort studies (ALSPAC, the British Cohort Study, Next Steps Generational Study, the Millennium Cohort Study) and Understanding Society (the UK household longitudinal study), this project will analyse the extent to which attendance of voluntary out-of-school youth provision has effects over time on: a) educational and career pathways; b) physical health; c) mental health; d) emotional development and mental wellbeing; e) tendency towards anti-social behaviour. The analysis will control for relevant characteristics, allowing for isolation of the impact that involvement in youth activities generates for young people. It will examine the effects on these young people at the time of their involvement, and afterwards, up until they are 30 years old. Additionally, the analysis will shed light on the existence of any systematic differences between participants and non-participants of youth activities.

In this study we aim to analyse whether or not vitamin D levels during pregnancy influence lung development and, consequently, the occurrence of asthma and lung function performance in childhood and adolescence. To analyse these associations, we will use two methodologies. First, we will look at whether or not vitamin D levels measured in blood during pregnancy are associated with the onset of asthma and lung function parameters at 8-9 years and 15-16 years in the ALSPAC cohort. Since this association may be influenced by many confounding factors such as lifestyle, socio-economic status, the season of the year when the blood was obtained, we will use Mendelian Randomisation to overcome this limitation. We will analyse whether or not genetic variants that predispose to having low levels of vitamin D are associated with a greater predisposition to having asthma and poorer lung function in childhood and adolescence. We will use data from 4 different European cohorts and one Australian cohort and, after doing all the analysis separately, we will collect the results and do a meta-analysis using all data.

Key to causal inference from observational data is adequate adjustment for confounders (i.e., factors which cause both the exposure and outcome). However, knowing whether a variable is a confounder (requiring statistical adjustment) or a mediator (i.e., a variable caused by the exposure which in turn causes the outcome; not requiring statistical adjustment) is often difficult to establish with certainty and often relies upon potentially-debatable assumptions. By making use of the repeated data collected by ALSPAC - both in terms of religiosity and data on other covariates which may be plausible confounders and/or mediators - it is possible to make reasonable inferences as to whether religiosity causes the covariate, the covariate causes religiosity, or indeed whether there is bidirectional causation (i.e., religiosity causes the covariate and the covariate also causes religiosity). If data permit adjustment for baseline confounders, prior exposure and prior outcomes, then it may be possible to infer causality using longitudinal observational data (VanderWeele 2021; VanderWeele et al., 2016). We intend to apply these methods in ALSPAC to explore potential bidirectional causation between religiosity and a range of covariates to better understand these patterns and to help inform future work using these data.

References:
VanderWeele, T. J. (2021). Can sophisticated study designs with regression analyses of observational data provide causal inferences?. JAMA psychiatry, 78(3), 244-246.
VanderWeele, T. J., Jackson, J. W., & Li, S. (2016). Causal inference and longitudinal data: a case study of religion and mental health. Social psychiatry and psychiatric epidemiology, 51(11), 1457-1466.

This study will assess how early interventions change the natural course of atopic dermatitis. Data will be collected and analyzed from the Avon Longitudinal Study of Parents and Children (ALSPAC), a population-based birth cohort of 14,000 children from Avon, UK. The project will assess how early use of therapy, including topical and oral agents, changes the disease course of atopic dermatitis from birth to 18 years of age. Several studies in other inflammatory diseases such as Crohn’s and rheumatoid arthritis have established the value of aggressive intervention shortly after symptom onset in producing long-term disease modification. There may be opportunities to observe a similar effect with respect to atopic dermatitis, as well as related diseases of the atopic march. Second, this study will assess the development of major comorbidities including asthma, rhinitis, and food allergy, including severity and time course in the first 18 years of life.

Research has shown that adults who look back on their childhood and say that they had a positive relationship with their parents, or felt loved by their parents, have better mental health. Indeed, these emotional memories can be more important for mental health than memories of specific behaviours that parents engaged in. However, we don’t know how the relationship between feeling loved in childhood and mental health actually comes about.
In this study, we will firstly look at how genetics relates to people saying they felt loved in childhood. People who took part in a large research study answered a question about whether they felt loved in childhood and provided a blood sample, so that we can look at their genetics. Genetic material (DNA) is made up of millions of tiny units called base pairs. At each base pair, a person can have one of two alleles. We will look at whether the allele that a person has at each base pair increases or decreases their likelihood of reporting that they felt loved in childhood. We will then look at whether there are similarities in how genetics contributes to feeling loved in childhood and depression, anxiety, and wellbeing.
This will help us to understand some of the reasons people are more or less likely to say they felt loved in childhood. It can also provide a better understanding of how feeling loved in childhood relates to mental health. All of this is important for how we understand the causes of mental health problems.

Preterm birth, the leading cause of death in children younger than five, is a risk factor for brain-based disorders, asthma, and ischemic heart disease. Lead is a toxic chemical and a known risk factor for preterm birth. Vitamin D may modify this relationship due to its probable antioxidant properties.

In a recent pan-Canadian study examining 1,851 live births from the Maternal-Infant Research on Environmental Chemicals (MIREC) cohort, prenatal exposure to low concentrations of lead increased the risk of preterm birth and spontaneous preterm birth, and the risks were stronger among mothers with insufficient vitamin D levels, suggesting that they might be more susceptible to the toxic effects of lead. However, average blood lead concentrations among mothers were low among a modest sample size, and replication of these findings is warranted.

We aim to estimate the joint association of blood lead and vitamin D with preterm birth the Avon Longitudinal Cohort of Parents and Children.

Information can be obtained from ALSPAC (B number folder) or the UK LLC on request

The placenta is a crucial organ of mammalian pregnancy, connecting mother and fetus. Impaired placentation and placental development and function are associated with common pregnancy complications including preeclmapsia, fetal growth restriction and preterm delivery.
Here we will investigate associations between placental weight, dimensions and number of cotyledons and pregnancy outcomes as well as the long term health of both mothers and their offspring. We will also use the genetic data in order to identify determinants of the placental traits.