Proposal summaries
B4586 - Multi-modal indices of connection in mother-infant relationships in UK and South Africa the role of mutual touch and eye gaze - 17/04/2024
Therefore, the primary objective of this study is to gain a deeper understanding of infant-mother touch and eye gaze, particularly examining; Are there more or lesser amounts of touch behaviour, gaze in UK vs South Africa caregivers, and are there similar or distinct connections between touch, eye gaze and positive emotional expression?
This is a project which is part of a project we already have approved (B4039), but Matt Hardcastle requested we need to submit a new proposal as the data will be used in Deborah's thesis.
B4588 - The impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on self-harm thoughts and behaviours in the ALSPAC cohort - 12/04/2024
The coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic had an immense impact on people’s lives worldwide. This may be particularly true for those with mental health issues. In the UK, presentations to hospitals for self-harm decreased markedly during the early period of the pandemic, before returning to normal levels (Paterson et al., 2023). This reduction was also reported in a systematic review (John, Eyles et al. 2020). However, one study found increased cases of self-harm thoughts in the emergency department, particularly for adolescent females (Sara, Wu et al. 2023). Patterns also differed according to factors such as socioeconomic status and age (Sara, Wu et al. 2023).
Results from a population-based survey suggest that suicidal thoughts and anxiety disorders increased during the pandemic, particularly among young adults, lower socioeconomic groups, and those with a history of mental health conditions (O'Connor, Wetherall et al. 2021). However, a population-wide data linkage study found unchanged patterns among individuals aged over 65 years, people living alone, or residents of affluent areas (Paterson et al., 2023). In another study, factors found to influence hospital presentations for self-harm during COVID-19 in the UK included COVID-19 infection, lockdown restrictions, limited access to psychiatric healthcare services, isolation, and mental health problems (Hawton, Lascelles et al. 2021).
The objective of this project is to identify the factors associated with self-harm thoughts and behaviours among young adults in the ALSPAC cohort during COVID-19. The study will contribute to the existing literature by using ALSPAC pre and post-pandemic data, collected prospectively, to identify different risk factors for self-harm thoughts and behaviours in the population. We will examine ten different risk factors related to self-harm thoughts and behaviours including participants’ demographics, mental health and personality, physical factors, and protective factors.
B4530 - Association between Visceral Adiposity Index and risk of hypertension among adolescents - 10/04/2024
This project aims to explore the association between Visceral adipose index (VAI) and hypertension in adolescents in order to make the primary screening and prevention of hypertension among the adolescent population more convenient, thereby reducing the morbidity of hypertension.
B4579 - The dominance dynamic in the family social control prestige attachment style and downstream consequences - 09/04/2024
Attachment insecurity (e.g., attachment avoidance and anxiety) is a fundamental characteristic linked to how people engage with and experience power dynamics inherent in social relationships. Social power motives (e.g. dominance, prestige) also predict various behaviours, preferences for, and experiences of social relationships, many of which overlap those connected to attachment insecurity. However, there is no extant work directly linking attachment insecurity to social power motives.
Yet there is ample evidence to hypothesize a relationship. The power motives are associated with the quality and outcomes of various close relationships, including friendships and romantic partnerships. A stronger general power motive in men is linked to breakups, intimate partner violence, and sexual coercion in romantic relationships. In non-romantic friendships, power motives predicts fewer dyadic interactions, increased frustration and guilt in friendship episodes, and more instrumental, assertive, and self-expansive striving in friendship. Similar outcomes have also been linked to differences in adult attachment orientations, suggesting a possible link between power motives and attachment orientations. On the other hand early-life attachment insecurity is also related to important later life outcome variables, such as antisocial behaviour and mental health. Might this relationship be mediated by individuals’ goals are and the way they behave, which are captured by dimensions of social power?
The aims of this project are to look at several factors in an individual’s upbringing, including attachment style, parental personality, socioeconomic status, and parental dynamics, to see how these factors are linked to dominance and prestige seeking personality traits, as well as life outcome variables.
B4576 - Investigating the contributions of fetal and maternal genetic variation associated with GDF15 levels in Hyperemesis Gravidarum - 29/04/2024
References to previously published work in the summary below are given as PubMed IDs.
Nausea and vomiting during pregnancy (NVP) is estimated to occur in around 70% of women globally, with 1.1% of women estimated to experience severe cases, diagnosed as Hyperemesis Gravidarum (HG) (PMID: 23863575). HG is associated with dehydration and weight loss, which can result in hospitalisation and have significant detrimental effects for both mother and fetus. These include increased risk of morbidity, placental complications, small for gestational age birth, maternal psychological distress and increased risk of developmental delay for offspring (PMID: 35367190, PMID: 25898368, PMID: 23360164, PMID: 33713683, PMID: 21413857) .
A recent study (PMID: 38092039) made great progress in understanding a major cause of NVP and HG. Using a variety of analyses, especially of human genetic data, the authors showed that maternal sensitivity to a protein released from the placenta called growth differentiation factor 15 (GDF15), is key causal risk factor. This finding was exciting as it suggested avenues for future research into prevention or treatment. Evidence for the role of GDF15 included associations of variants (single letter changes in the DNA code) in the GDF15 gene region with both risk of NVP or HG, and with GDF15 levels in the blood (PMID: 35218128, PMID:29563502, PMID: 38092039). The finding that women who have naturally low levels of GDF15 are more sensitive to the GDF15 released from the placenta and more susceptible to NVP and HG, raised the possibility that a fetal genetic variants which increase GDF15 production may also influence HG or NVP risk. There was some evidence in a small sample that the genotype of the fetus, relative to the mother, may be associated with the proportion of fetal-placental derived GDF15 contributing to circulating GDF15, potentially mediating experiences of nausea and vomiting (PMID: 38092039). However, analyses of maternal and fetal genotype data in well powered samples are needed to confirm this, which is the focus of our proposed project. We aim to explore the maternal and fetal genetic contributions of genetic variants to nausea and vomiting during pregnancy.
B4565 - Investigating the Influence of Problem Gambling and Socioeconomic Factors on Suicidality and Negative Mental Health - 03/04/2024
Recent analysis of longitudinal cohort studies suggests that problem gambling in young adults is associated with subsequent suicide attempts and suicidal thoughts. Our study proposes to replicate these findings in a new cohort (ALSPAC), and expand upon the existing research by investigating whether socioeconomic status factors interact with these relationships, if they exist. Socioeconomic factors are associated with problem gambling and suicidality, but little is known about whether they interact to increase the risk of suicidality. We also hope to investigate if other gambling factors, such as gambling frequency, predict suicidality, as well as investigating if gambling behaviour predicts other negative mental health outcomes, such as self-harm, depressive mood and negative well-being. As problem gambling and suicidality are both public health issues, especially amongst young adults in the UK, understanding the relationships and mechanisms of these problems is important. It is hoped that this research can reveal potential negative mental-health consequences of problem gambling and help identify populations who may be at specific risk of these negative consequences, such as those with lower socioeconomic status. Thus, evidence from this study may inform gambling reduction or suicide prevention strategies to improve their effectiveness and improve the lives of those who may be at risk of gambling problems or suicide.
B4575 - Adverse health outcomes in offspring following in utero exposure to maternal medication - 12/04/2024
Pregnancy is a vulnerable period when the foetus undergoes rapid development; therefore, exposure to adverse risk factors can have lifelong implications. Use of medicines during pregnancy is avoided where possible but is sometimes unavoidable. Whilst acute adverse effects following foetal exposure in utero have been assessed for several medicines, possible longer-term effects are not well understood. In particular, their effect on dental and oral outcomes is poorly understood. Using ALSPAC health data will enable us to do novel research to improve our understanding of the effects of taking medication during pregnancy on the child’s oral and dental health and development.
B4572 - Does climate anxiety impact subsequent mental health - 26/03/2024
Climate change is increasingly affecting our planet, impacting people’s health, security and livelihood, as well as wider biodiversity. Given this, it is perhaps not surprising that many studies have identified ‘climate anxiety’ (or ‘eco-anxiety’) as an emotional response to these events. Numerous studies have found that anxiety regarding climate change is associated with worse mental health, such as higher rates of depressive and anxiety symptoms, although the majority of these studies are small, cross-sectional and from unrepresentative samples, limiting both generalisability and the extent to which causal conclusions can be drawn. There is therefore a need to explore these questions using data from a large-scale longitudinal population-based study; this is what we intend to do here, using data from ALSPAC.
B4577 - Policy engagement project to address Areas of Research Interest of Bristol City Council - 29/03/2024
A link between ALSPAC and Bristol City Council (BCC) is needed to ensure that ALSPAC findings can be translated into useful policymaking evidence for Bristol City Council. The link will enable a sustainable infrastructure to be set up to ensure that BCC is aware of the level of evidence that ALSPAC is able to provide on priority health issues and BCC is able to make ALSPAC aware of issues that they would like evidence on. The data to answer these policy questions might already be in the data repository or it might require new funding applications to provide this evidence.
B4573 - Using statistical and machine learning approaches to predict bone health from physical activity measured with accelerometers - 26/03/2024
Weight bearing physical activity is known to be beneficial for bone health. Predicting future bone health from accelerometer data may be useful to inform targeted interventions. We will use machine learning and statistical approaches to determine the extent to which bone health can be predicted from physical activity measured with accelerometers.
B4574 - Epigenome-wide association study of exposure to air pollution and NDVI - 26/03/2024
Changes in DNA methylation have been associated with exposure to air pollution and other environmental exposures. However, it is yet unclear whether early life developmental sensitivity or the accumulation of exposures have the most significant effects.
This study will analyse the association of air pollution and normalised difference vegetation index (NDVI) with DNA methylation at different ages.
B4578 - Genome-Wide Association Study of Blood Pressure and the influence of education - 26/03/2024
The Cohorts for Heart and Aging Research in Genomic Epidemiology (CHARGE) consortium is an international organization founded to facilitate large-scale genetic studies among multiple large and well-characterised groups of participants.
The goal of the CHARGE studies is to identify susceptibility genes involved in diseases of the heart, lung, and blood and their risk factors.
In our study, we will analyse the association of gene variants with blood pressure, considering the effect of the educational level in ALSPAC participants. The results will be combined with results from other groups of participants around the world to be able to identify new gene variants that help understand the biology of blood pressure.
B4566 - Transgenerational influence of parental cardiometabolic health and depressive symptoms on child development - 10/04/2024
Over the past three decades, there has been a substantial increase in the prevalence of mental disorders, which remain a leading cause of disease burden worldwide. Mental disorders in adulthood are found associated with poorer overall health and quality of life. Cardiometabolic mechanisms have been implicated in mental illness. For example, overweight and obese individuals are also more likely to be diagnosed with mental illness. Furthermore, perinatal depression and anxiety in mothers can influence offspring's cardiometabolic health and neurodevelopment. However, the effectiveness of parental interventions to improve offspring’s health outcomes is not conclusively established. Given these gaps in knowledge, the transgenerational effects of parental health warrant a more comprehensive investigation. In this project, we will use the ALSPAC cohort to investigate the transgenerational effects of parental cardiometabolic and mental health on offspring’s development. We will also investigate potential mediating pathways via early-life environmental and molecular mechanisms. This project will contribute to identifying potential targets for intervention and critical windows for interventions.
B4563 - A life course approach to the relationship between adverse childhood events and later mental health - 18/03/2024
Adverse childhood events (ACEs) are a known cause of subsequent negative health and social outcomes, such as mental health problems. However, the life course trajectory of these ACEs on subsequent mental health – e.g., whether they are felt immediately, take years to manifest or persist over time – is not clear. We plan on using longitudinal ACEs data in ALSPAC to answer this question.
B4560 - Comparing approaches combining multiple imputation with inverse probability weighting - 18/03/2024
Missing data - such as from loss-to-follow-up in longitudinal studies - can lead to bias in analyses, resulting in incorrect conclusions. Various methods have been developed to try and account for such bias due to missing data; two common approaches are Multiple Imputation (MI), where missing data are imputed numerous times, analysed and then combined together, and Inverse-Probability Weighting (IPW), where individuals with observed data are weighted so they represent the original sample. However, sometimes these approaches are insufficient by themselves - e.g., MI may not be appropriate when imputing large swathes of missingness due to potential model misspecification/increased noise, while IPW is more challenging when there is missing data in the covariates of the missingness/weighting model. Given this, there is a need to develop and explore methods which combine MI and IPW to maximise the strengths and minimise the limitations of each approach. While previous work in this area has been conducted, the current approaches cannot easily be applied to complex real-world data such as in ALSPAC and need to be combined to increase their utility to applied researchers (e.g., using MI to impute missing baseline covariate data in the IPW weighting model, followed by IPW to weight participants within a given 'block' of data, then MI again to impute missing data in the substantive analysis model).
B4561 - Association of birth weight centiles with infant and childhood growth dynamics - 18/03/2024
The fetal and developmental origins of disease hypothesis suggests that pre-conception (maternal and paternal) and intrauterine (maternal) prenatal factors can influence postnatal health, including growth and adiposity. Birth weight is a marker of intrauterine growth and has been associated with risk of overweight and obesity, as have preterm birth, and small and large for gestational age. To the best of our knowledge, no study has investigated the association between continuous birthweight (for gestational age) centiles beyond the traditional thresholds for small or large for gestational age and longitudinal growth throughout infancy and childhood. This study will address this evidence gap.
B4568 - Genome-wide association study of reproductive hormones - 18/03/2024
Infertility, defined as the inability to achieve pregnancy within 12 months of regular unprotected sexual intercourse, affects one in six couples across the globe. A range of environmental and genetic factors may drive infertility, including the age-related decline of sperm and oocyte quality and quantity, infectious diseases, and rare Mendelian disorders such as cystic fibrosis. However, the exact cause remains undetermined in up to 28% of couples and 40% of women with infertility. Given that current treatments such as in vitro fertilisation pose physical, emotional, and financial burdens on couples and healthcare systems, a richer understanding of the biology and pathophysiology of infertility is urgently necessary. This project will conduct a genome-wide association study (GWAS) in ALSPAC and other participating cohorts. In addition, the project will conduct a GWAS of infertility (not in ALSPAC).
B4571 - ART-HEALTH Conception by assisted reproductive technologies and offspring health - 18/03/2024
Infertility affects 1 in 6 couples. With increasing numbers of assisted reproductive technology (ART) conceptions, understanding the effects of ART on maternal and offspring health has been designated a major research priority. Research to date has been highlighted as having limited quality and lacking methodological transparency. In ART-HEALTH we use a robust, systematic approach of triangulating different sources of evidence to address this.
B4569 - The changing digital world and its impact on youth emotional problems - 29/03/2024
Over the past three decades, adolescent emotional problems have risen at an alarmingly rate. One of the biggest changes in young people’s lives over the last few decades has been the parallel rise in digital media use, however, implications for trends in youth mental health remain unclear. Efforts to understand the role of digital media in relation to youth mental health have so far been limited by retrospective self-reports. One way to advance our understanding of digital media is to use ecological momentary assessments (EMA). EMA is a research method that involves real time reports in a real world setting. As such, it provides more objective and fine-grained data about both time and type of digital media use. The current project will test whether built-in features of a smartphone, as well as EMA, can be used to complement our understanding of digital media use among children and adolescents, and the possible impact this may be having on their emotional problems.
B4559 - Gambling behaviour and neurodiversity - 18/03/2024
Previous research has shown that harms associated with gambling are wide-ranging, including harms to the individual who gambles and harms to those close to them such as family, friends and colleagues. Gambling harms can manifest in financial, relationship, mental health and cultural problems, impacting individuals across a range of domains. There is evidence that gambling harms affect different groups disproportionately, placing the highest burden on those that are already marginalised and increasing social, economic and health inequalities across society. Despite evidence of this disproportionate experience of gambling harms, there has only recently been a shift in the focus of research away from a ‘catch all’ approach to a focus on the intersections with other harms and inequalities. One major intersection of gambling harm risk is neurodiversity. In this project, we will use data from the Avon Longitudinal Study of Parents and Children (ALSPAC) to investigate the experience of gambling harms by individuals who are neurodiverse and explore how these differ to those experienced by neurotypical individuals.