Previous research has shown associations between autistic traits and a higher risk of violent offending (adjusted relative risk = 1.39, 95% CI = 1.23−1.58).
Multiple risk behaviours such as smoking, alcohol consumption and antisocial behaviour are prevalent during adolescence and have also been shown to co-occur during this period. A growing body of evidence suggests that these behaviours are strongly associated, some causally, with adverse health outcomes in later life, including chronic health conditions, morbidity and premature mortality. It is therefore important to establish antecedents of MRB in order to develop effective interventions

Substance use in young adulthood is associated with considerable morbidity, a situation which is substantially increasing, and a greater burden in young males [1]. SubstanceIllicit substance use of drugs use is taken to be illegal substances such as cannabis, cocaine, and synthetic stimulants . Use of these illegal substances is associated with an increased risks of addiction, overdose and long-term health effects, and therefore presents a significant public health concern. The link between substance use and poor mental health, educational attainment and subsequent employment is well documented [3]. Harms may be increased if use is during adolescence, a period of development is characterised by extensive cognitive and emotional development, which can be inhibited by substance use, and have a negative impact of future life outcomes [1]. A recent study suggested that in terms of brain development, adolescence should be considered up to age 25 [2]. Focussing on adolescence is important, as this is when most people start engaging in substance use, and therefore this period of life is important for the timing of preventative interventions [4]. Of interest is the substance use that persists throughout adolescence and into adulthood, which could progress to dependent use and be damaging to health.
However, there is marked global variation in prevalence of use of these substances, which indicates that contextual and individual factors influence this behaviour. As Mmuch of this data comes from self-reported questionnaires, and aspects of data collection may also affect differences in prevalence of reported use. Substance use is taken to be illegal substances such as cannabis, cocaine, and synthetic stimulants. Use of these illegal substances is associated with an increased risk of addiction, overdose and long-term health effects, and therefore presents a significant public health concern. Of interest is the substance use that persists throughout adolescence and into adulthood, which could progress to dependent use and be damaging to health. This period of adolescence is characterised by extensive cognitive and emotional development, which can be inhibited by substance use, and have a negative impact of future life outcomes [1]. A recent study suggested that in terms of brain development, adolescence should be considered up to age 25 [2]. The link between substance use and poor mental health, educational attainment and subsequent employment is well documented [3]. However, it is less clear why geographical variations in substance use occur, and the factors that predict drug use during young adulthood. Focussing on young adulthood is important as this is when most people start engaging in substance use, and therefore this period of life is important for the timing of preventative interventions [4]. To fully characterise the problem of substance use in this age group, more work is needed to understand the extent of substance use and identify risk factors that predict drug use.

Children who are above a ‘healthy’ weight (medically classified as a BMI of over 25kg/m2) tend to do less well at school than their ‘healthy’ weight peers. Studies which followed children up over time found those who were overweight or obese tended to do less well, particularly for maths. This difference was mainly found in girls, and tended to emerge in the teenage years.

Various ideas have been suggested to explain this relationship, ranging from health-related absences, to the impact of size-related bullying, to the unconscious bias of teachers. However, quantitative evidence to support these explanations is inconsistent, making it hard to draw clear conclusions. Surprisingly, there have been very few qualitative studies that ask young people, or their teachers, their views on this issue.

We want to explore if, how and why being above a ‘healthy’ weight affects people’s experiences of school and their educational performance. To do this, we want to interview young people (aged 11-16 years) and young adults (from the ALSPAC cohort, aged ≈28 years) who are/were above a ‘healthy weight’ in adolescence.

We will recruit young people (11-16 years) from community-based weight management services in Bristol and the surrounding areas. This will allow us to explore the views of young people currently in school.

However, we also want to understand how body size and weight might affect education beyond secondary-school level and its potential longer-term impact on young people as they enter the work environment. For this reason, we would also like to invite ALSPAC participants who were above a ‘healthy’ weight in adolescence (11-16 years) to take part in interviews. As ALSPAC participants are now in their late twenties, they will be able to reflect on their entire educational ‘career’, as well as describing if and how it impacted their employment and experience of the workplace.

LONGITOOLS will develop a holistic exposomic approach to this important health, societal and environmental challenge – LONGITOOLS will operationalise a very large and detailed set of longitudinal data with repeated measures spanning form the pre-conceptional period until late adulthood. The conceptualisation of the exposome paradigm defines the health status at any time during the life-course as being a function of a cumulative effect of all exposures an individual has been exposed to. In comparison to traditional models linking environmental exposure to a health outcome, an exposome-wide model will use the multiple dimensions within the data to reduce the fragmented view of a problem. Future opportunities to address the epidemic of MC-NCD, very likely to be a causal consequence of obesity, will depend on the capacity to:

i) model and utilise the correlation structure linking the environmental exposures to the life-course risk of MC-NCD e.g. social disadvantage linked to obesogenic urban design linked to pollution(s) linked to unhealthy behaviour (see impact section);

ii) define the possible paths (and the resilience factors) through which an unfavourable environment may cause health deterioration and

iii) identify from a silo of possible internal exposome how the environmental exposures convert into possible biological cause affecting the health risk (and vice-versa)

LONGITOOLS’s overarching aim is to harness the temporal dimensions in the exposome influencing the bi-directional association observed between individual health and the environment based on longitudinal models with repeated measures and survey of the exposome. The data incorporated as well as the researchers, knowledge managers and innovative network will be harnessed to demonstrate the temporal causality from the pre-conceptional period up until old age, with a dedicated focus on the life-course aetiology of circulatory, cardiac and metabolic NCDs.

We will empower this innovative consortium to adapt and develop statistical approaches of data-mining in exposomics with longitudinal built-in. We will focus on the changes in the epigenomic, metabolomics, and transcriptomics responses to encompass the internal dynamics. We will incorporate latent trajectory methods in the analysis of specific effect modifiers including diet, physical activity and behaviours. A first key exploitable tool for LONGITOOLS will be the integration in an exposome econometric life-course model of circulatory, cardiac and metabolic NCDs developed in longitudinal birth cohort studies. A second tool LONGITOOLS for impact will exploit our knowledge and innovative network to maximise impact towards innovative research, new technology and environmental and health policies.

All data and tools of LONGITOOLS will be harmonized alongside on-going European initiatives [DynaHEALTH, LifeCycle, BBMRI, EUCAN-Connect and EUCanSHare], Joint Project Initiatives PREcisE (ICL), NutriPROGRAM (EMC) and DiGuMet (CUT), we anticipate interaction with other funded projects to integrate LONGITOOLS into the EU Human Exposome Project Where additional health trajectories can be studied.

Tinnitus is the subjective perception of sound in the head or ears, typically whistling or buzzing sounds. Our earlier study of tinnitus using ALSPAC showed it was common in childhood with a prevalence of ~28% at age 11; clinically significant tinnitus was much less common however, at around 3%. In adulthood, the prevalence is around 1 in 10, and the most common risk factors are hearing loss and increasing age. It is not known whether tinnitus in childhood predicts adult tinnitus.

Having tinnitus is associated with increased levels of anxiety and depression but is unclear whether this is a consequence of tinnitus, or whether people with higher levels of anxiety and depression are more likely to report and seek help for their tinnitus. There is also an association of tinnitus with particular psychological traits such as neuroticism but the direction of causality is not known. Finally links have been described between tinnitus and suicide, but it is not known whether these relate to the co-occurring depression and hearing loss that often come with tinnitus.

We therefore aim to examine risk factors and outcomes for tinnitus in both childhood and adulthood in the ALSPAC cohort.

The environment we live in has a dominant impact on our health. It explains an estimated 70% of the chronic disease burden. As most of the aspects of our environment are modifiable, this provides a huge potential for disease prevention. Derived from the term exposure, the Exposome is the sum of all non-genetic drivers of health and diseases. Interacting with the genome, it defines individual health at different stages throughout the life course, inlcuding foetal life. The Exposome can be considered from two complementary angles: the External Exposome, comprising aspects of the built environment, the social environment, the physico-chemical environment, and the lifestyle/food environment; and the Internal Exposome, all exogenous or endogenous (bio)chemical entities measured in human biospecimens and influenced by the external urban exposome, including biomarkers of the exposures in the environment that are taken up, metabolised and might lead to biological changes.
EXPANSE will take the next step in Exposome research by introducing the following key elements into its research programme: bringing together large health datasets (millions of individuals) in support of sufficiently sized Exposome studies, addressing the evolution of both the exposome and health over the life-course, moving from observing static associations towards developing dynamic interventions, and introducing methodological innovations and practical tools. By establishing the largest European urban Exposome consortium to date and building upon the methodological development and insights gained from the first generation of exposome projects, EXPANSE will address the most pertinent questions for urban planners, policy makers and inhabitants in Europe.

The aim of this request is to ask the ALSPAC team to consider including the measurement of sexual orientation (sexual attractions and sexual experiences) in future data collection. Sexual orientation is an important feature of human nature and diversity. While most people identify as heterosexual (attracted to the opposite sex), a substantial number of the population identify as non-heterosexual. This includes lesbian, gay, and bisexual identification as well as a range of emerging sexualities (such as asexual). Scholars from across medicine, behavioural and social sciences have also found that nonheterosexual people are at greater risk of common mental health problems such as depression, anxiety, and suicide compared to heterosexual people. These problems tend to start early in adolescence among nonheterosexual people. It is important to understand the social, psychological, and biological factors that might be involved in contributing to this mental health disparity. This will help researchers to identify the most important risk factors and develop interventions (e.g., psychological interventions) to reduce the burden of these problems on nonheterosexual people. Studies using data from ALSPAC have already helped to identify some of these risk factors and thus continued measurement of sexual orientation in the cohort will prove invaluable to future researchers. In general, future basic and applied scientific research on sexual orientation will provide greater social and cultural understanding of the diversity in human sexuality.