Proposal summaries
B124 - Indices and characteristics of childrens body surface area and shape from quantative 3D scanning - 01/08/2003
(No outline received).
B2057 - Funds to processes linked FE HE data - 01/08/2003
.2 The ALSPAC Cohort in Relation to Education Provision
The young people in the study span 3 academic years, referred to as the 'oldest', 'middle', and 'youngest' cohorts. The cases are unevenly distributed across the three years with approximately the following proportions: Oldest cohort - 25% Middle cohort - 60% Youngest cohort - 15%
2.3 Further & Higher Education, and Work Based Learning
In academic year 2007/08 the oldest cohort potentially entered Year 12 or may have left compulsory schooling. This means that they may no longer feature in the NPD, but for those undertaking further education, their educational participation should be picked up in the Individual Learner Record (ILR). In subsequent years they may also move into HE, where their participation would be picked up in the HESA Student Record. At these ages, the young people clearly become of prime interest to this department. Linking to the ILR and HESA data sets offers the potential to continue tracking the educational history of participants, offering the potential for in depth analyses of progression.
2.4 Publication Record
ALSPAC researchers have a strong track record of using linked education data. Over the past five years, 23 peer-reviewed papers have used linked data to investigate education related hypotheses.1-23 These publications used the wealth of data available from ALSPAC; incorporating the influence of genetic variation on attainment, and using detailed individual level data on social background and aspirations to help describe the impact of disadvantaged upbringings on life chances and aspirations. Evidence from ALSPAC, including linked education data, were used to contribute to the Independent Review on Poverty and Life Chances by Frank Field MP 'The Foundation Years: Preventing Poor Children becoming Poor Adults'24 and the Marmot Review 'Fair Society, Healthy Lives'.25
3. Project Summary
2.1 BIS will contract ALSPAC to conduct linkage to NPD/Data Service/HESA records to collect and process educational attainments for the ALSPAC cohort members from the age of 16 onwards. The linkage will focus on Further Education/ Vocational data provided in the ILR extract and Higher Education information provided by HESA and NPD.
2.2 A cost effective mechanism, using ALSPAC's existing linkage to the NPD, has been confirmed that will allow collection and linkage of ILR and HESA data alongside
KS5 data via the NPD. These data will follow on from the data collected from NPD under ALSPAC's contract with the DfE.
3. Proposed work
The key elements of the work to be undertaken are:
Arrange access to data & documentation Securely archive raw data Conduct linkage quality control work Anonymise the data set (remove personal identifiers, sensitive variables and replace NPD pupil IDs with a new unique ALSPAC ID) Reformat the data to ALSPAC standards to ensure compatibility with the linked schools data and self-reported participant data. Publish 'built' files of the data within the ALSPAC resource
Access and matching arrangements have been agreed as follows: Confirmation from the Department (BIS) that there is an ILR-NPD-HESA matched dataset; NPD and Dissemination Unit (Data Services Group) has advised us that the NPD-HESA matched dataset can be shared with ALSPAC under existing contractual arrangements with the Department for Education (DfE); NPD and Dissemination Unit (Data Services Group) has confirmed that the ILR-NPD matched dataset can be shared with ALSPAC once the contract with BIS has been confirmed.
Table 1 details the 5 elements of data linking included in the contract and the associated timings.
B128 - Maternal ingestion of phytoestrogens and their effect on maternal health and outcome of pregnancy - 01/07/2003
(No outline received).
B127 - Identify ways in which soy formula and other soy product ingestion in infants affects child development - 01/07/2003
(No outline received).
B123 - Associations between diet and obesity - 01/07/2003
(No outline received).
B122 - Does performance in eye movement control/predict risk-taking behaviour - 01/07/2003
(No outline received).
B121 - Chronic fatigue disorders of sleep phase duration - 01/07/2003
(No outline received).
B117 - Methods to deal with missing data in ALSPAC - 01/06/2003
Analyses of data from longitudinal studies are often complicated by the presence of missing values, caused
by participant dropout or non-response. Failure to allow for this can lead to both biased and inefficient
statistical analyses. Analyses ignoring problems caused by missing data are common. Statistical research has
generated better ways to deal with these problems, but the methods are technically challenging. The
proposed research will focus on the application of multiple imputation (MI) - the most flexible available
method - in longitudinal studies. We will demonstrate the potential of MI to reduce bias and increase
precision in analyses of data from the ALSPAC birth cohort study and the ART-CC and ART-LINC HIV
cohort collaborations. We will also clarify the circumstances in which analyses allowing for missing data are
likely to have advantages over simpler methods. We will develop a framework for simulations that allow
evaluation of characteristics of imputation procedures, and use both simulations and analyses of longitudinal
data to examine how to deal with the model complexity that characterises application of these procedures.
We will adapt existing software to improve model diagnostics that may alert the user to problems in
imputation procedures and to facilitate sensitivity analyses that examine robustness of results to data that are
missing not at random MNAR). We will work with members of the CONSORT and STROBE groups, and
with journal editors, to provide guidelines on reporting analyses that deal with missing data.
B116 - Risk factors for the onset of depression in adolescence neuro-endocrine mechanisms and sex differences - 01/06/2003
(No outline received).
B120 - Investigating the aetiology of chlamydia - associated with tubal factor infertility - 01/06/2003
(No outline received).
B119 - Neighbourhood and household influences on injuries to preschool children - 01/06/2003
Injuries caused by accidents are a particular problem in young children and children's injury rates vary considerably from place to place. Low-income neighbourhoods have higher child injury rates than high-income neighbourhoods, and recent research suggests that only part of the difference is due to variations in the social, economic and demographic composition of local populations. This research aims to find out the relative contributions of family characteristics and neighbourhood features to the risk of injury to children aged 0-4 years in Bristol and its surrounding region, to discover some of the mechanisms that create patterns of inequality. The objectives are:
1) to determine the risk factors acting at the level of the child, the household and the neighbourhood, and whether these risks act independently.
2) to determine whether residents' perceptions of neighbourhood and local social networks are related to geographical variations in the risk of injury.
3) to determine the size of effects and interactions between risk factors, and identify modifiable risk factors that might be subject to intervention.
4) to identify the scale (size of neighbourhoods) at which any effects of place are most evident.
B100 - To investigate dietary patterns of children consuming high salt levels throughout early childhood - 01/06/2003
(No outline received).
B118 - Expression of Interest Evidence and guidance Collaborating Centres - 01/06/2003
(No outline received).
B115 - Social and cultural determinants of health - 01/05/2003
(No outline received).
B114 - Fluoride exposure and dental caries - 01/05/2003
(No outline received).
B113 - Diet obesity and DXA - 01/05/2003
(No outline received).
B112 - Preparation for data sharing in the large birth cohort studies - 01/05/2003
(No outline received).
B110 - Bladder and bowel continence - 01/05/2003
Generalised Growth Mixture Models will enable us to divide the children into different groups (cluster-analysis style) and fit a different trajectory for each group. In the graph below, the y-axis is the probability of being dry at night. Preliminary analysis using data up to 91 months suggests 4 different groups: normal children, delayed dryness, severely delayed dryness and a relapse group.
Group membership can then be used as either a multinomial outcome or as a predictor for further analysis into the causes/effects of subnormal development of continence. The intention is to produce one methodological paper on the subject of fitting such models and then further epidemiological papers using the resulting groups.
B108 - Developmental predictors of early onset mood disorders - 01/04/2003
(No outline received).
B107 - An investigation of the relationship between allergic sensitisation immunogenetic susceptibility and the risk of childhood common acute lymphoblastic leukaemia - 01/04/2003
(No outline received).