Proposal summaries
B15 - The genetic environmental aetiology of anxiety in mothers - 01/07/2001
(No outline received).
B14 - A comparison of parental questionnaires and a system of professional child health surveillance in identifying developmental impairments - 01/07/2001
This project will investigate how well parents and health professionals can identify developmental problems in preschool children, using the ALSPAC study, a total birth cohort of 14,138 children born in 1991-2.
We will test whether parents are the first to identify impairments in their children and whether questionnaires can be an effective method of selecting children for further professional assessment in the pre-school period.
B12 - Vegetarian diet and health - 01/07/2001
(No outline received).
B11 - The ALSPAC cell lines - 01/07/2001
The overall aim of this grant was to create a Lymphoblastoid Cell Line (LCL) collection from children and parents participating in the Avon Longitudinal Study of Parents and Children (ALSPAC). The study has collected data on a scale and with a richness unprecedented in the field of epidemiological study and the generation of the cell line bank would provide material for further genetic, gene expression and metabolomic research.
Development of the resource initially involved establishing a cell culture facility with robotic cell maintenance systems, development of a bespoke Laboratory Information Management System (LIMS) and development of protocols for the transformation and growth of LCLs. Once these systems were in place LCL production would become a routine laboratory procedure enabling cell lines to be produced from all cohort members who consented to cell line production.
B7 - Hearing - 01/06/2001
(No proposal form received).
B6 - Proximity to overhead power lines and depression - 01/06/2001
(No proposal form received).
B5 - Thiomersal in DTP immunisations and long term development of this child - 01/06/2001
N/A
B3 - An investigation into environmental influences on skeletal mineralisation during childhood - 01/06/2001
This project aimed to examine whether skeletal development in childhood is programmed by early life factors, by studying the relationship between maternal diet as assessed by food frequency questionnaire (FFQ), other determinants of maternal nutrition such as smoking and exercise, and bone mass acquisition in childhood. The latter was assessed by measuring total body bone mineral content (BMC), bone area and bone mineral density (BMD) by performing total body DXA scans in 7000 children from the Avon Longitudinal Study of Parents and Children (ALSPAC) cohort at age nine. Regional development at sites such as the spine, upper and lower limbs was also evaluated. In further studies, we aimed to explore the mechanisms involved in any such programming effect by examining the role of genetic factors by studying associations between DXA parameters and single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) in different genes.
B106 - Mannose binding lectin genotype and preterm labour and delivery - 01/06/2001
(No outline received).
B13 - Lifestyle and changes in body composition through puberty a resource for a study of gene-environment interactions - 01/01/2001
Our proposal was to create a resource for the study of lifestyle and body composition through puberty bycollecting and calibrating data on diet, activity and body composition within the Avon Longitudinal Study ofParents and Children (ALSPAC). The specific aims of the proposal were to:
- Code dietary diaries collected at age 10+
- Code activity diaries collected at age 10+
- Perform total body dual energy X-ray absorptiometry (DXA) scans at age 11+
- Perform calibration studies using magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) and deuterium dilution at age 11+
- Collect and code dietary diaries at age 13+
- Collect and code activity diaries at age 13+
- Perform total DXA scans at age at age 13+
- Perform calibration studies using MRI and deuterium dilution at age 13+
- Calibrate the diet diary measures using repeat diaries, overnight urine collection and activity measures at age 13+
B285 - A national DNA control series for genetic case-control studies based on the British 1958 cohort NOT ALSPAC - 01/01/2001
The MRC / Wellcome Trust Expert Working Group on UK Population Biomedical Collections, in their final report dated March 2000 (section 1.9), suggested that there was a need for intensive genotyping of a "panel of controls ... representing various sectors of the UK population ... for comparison of SNP allele and genotype frequencies with case series." This application describes an expeditious and cost-effective approach to the creation of such a DNA control panel, by producing immortalised cell lines and banked DNA from specimens to be collected over the next two years from members of the British 1958 birth cohort. This fieldwork is already funded by the MRC and all biological material thus derived will be managed according to the MRC guidelines for use of human tissue and biological samples in research (1999), except that our MREC-approved consent forms extend only to non-commercial medical research studies of the causes, diagnosis, treatment or outcome of disease. This nationwide sample of adults followed from birth potentially offers much richer phenotypic information than a control group newly recruited in middle age. In particular, there is prospectively collected data on traits and diseases during childhood and adolescence which would be missed by creation of a de novo panel.
B287 - Antisocial behaviour in girls BAT Study - 01/06/2000
Though universally documented, sex differences in antisocial disorders remain poorly understood, and existing theory and evidence couses heavily on males. This proposal outlines an integrated programme of studies - spanning early childhood to the adult years - designed to test psychosocial influences on sex differences, and to provide the basis for a life-course perspective on antisocial behaviour in girls. Building on collaborations with three ongoing UK and US epidemiology/longitudinal studies the programme tests: (i) influences on the emergence of sex differences in early childhood; (ii) contrasting developmental models for the onset and persistance of girls' antisocial behaviour in childhood and adolescence, and for continuities to problems in psychosocial functioning in adult life; and (iii) biological and psychosocial risks for the development of depressive co-morbidity in early adolescence, and for the onset and recurrence of low mood in adult life.
B284 - Stepfamilies single parent families and childrens development and adjustment Sub-study supervised by Judy Dunn Institute of Psychiatry Avon Brothers and Sister Study - 01/01/2000
Children in single-parent and step-families have higher rates of problems in adjustment, education and health than those in non step-families, yet individual dfferences are marked. This programme of research is focused on the issue of which individuals are most vulnerable, to identify significant sources of risk and support in relation to the mental and physical health of children and parents.
B282 - Genetic and environmental influences on the atherogenic phenotype in the young a population based study - 01/01/2000
We have developed techniques to study endothellal function non-invasively in children and young adults. This programme of work will study how genetic and early enviromental factors affect endothellal function and other markers of early arterial disease (such as arterial stiffness) in a large population of pre-pubertal children undergoing long-term follow-up. Long-term follow-up will also show how these arterial changes progress during puberty and when later risk factors such as smoking are enocuntered.
B294 - To assess whether age at onset of puberty is influenced by intrauterine exposure to endocrine disrupting chemicals - 01/01/1999
HSB would like to purchase the data from the University after it has been collected.HSB would like to increase the amount of FY06 funds to increase the number of questionnaires (from 10,700 to 11,800) and the amount of work associated with pulling and shipping biologic samples from the University of Bristol to the NCEH lab for analysis.
In addition to the Tanner Scale questionnaire, from 2005, ALSPAC will supply biological samples; namely 150 maternal bloods, 150 maternal urines and 300 cord blood samples. This will be at an additional cost of $22,728 for 2007; $16,387 for 2008.
Background: The onset of puberty is difficult to ascertain using Tanner stages, which are subjective in nature. Especially when Tanner stages are self-reported by pre-teen children, questions of accuracy arise. The transition into puberty - represented by entry into Tanner Stage 2 - is especially difficult to determine. Since the outward sign of development reflect underlying changes in concentrations of reproductive hormones, an alternative method of detecting progression into puberty is to examine concentrations of relevant hormones. In pre-pubertal boys, testosterone levels are close of 0 nmol/L. It is only with the onset of puberty that blood concentrations rise and a distinctive pattern develops (Albertsson-Wikland 1997).
Purpose: Many of the boys in the study cohort have completed questionnaires indicating that they had reached puberty (Tanner Stage 2 or higher) as early as age 8. Using the blood hormone concentration, we will compare the self-reported pubertal stage to a more objective measure.
Description: We will examine testosterone concentrations measured by University of Bristol in 1000 (in total) previously collected blood samples of boys aged 7 through 10. Costs of this are included in Modified Line 005.
This sole-source contract is for the data collected during 2004 - 2008.
B699 - An exploration of the effect of early life experiences on childhood resilience in children of the 90s - 01/01/1900
B698 - Study of CRHR1 and HSD11B1 genetic variants in ALSPAC - 01/01/1900
B989 - An item response theory analysis of the Childhood interview for DSM-IV Borderline Personality Disorders C1-BPD - 01/01/1900
We wish to investigate the measurement of borderline personality disorder (BPD) within the 11-12 year-old cohort of the ALSPAC data. Specifically, we intend to employ item response theory (IRT) methods on the BPD symptom criteria. IRT constitutes a latent trait approach to psychological measurement, modeling the probability of endorsing a given item (e.g., presence of affective instability) as a function of an individual's standing on the underlying construct (e.g., BPD).
The basic unit of IRT is the item characteristic curve (ICC), which depicts visually the relationship between the construct and a person's response to an item (Embretson & Reise, 2000). The shape of this curve is influenced by at least two parameters: difficulty and discrimination. The difficulty parameter represents the point at which the probability of endorsing an item is 50%. The discrimination parameter is the slope of the ICC at the value of the difficulty parameter. These parameters will provide important information for evaluating the performance of each BPD criterion, such as the level of BPD needed to meet the criterion and the degree to which it differentiates among higher and lower levels of BPD (Feske, Kirisci, Tarter, & Pilkonis, 2007).
Most applications of IRT require that the construct being measured is unidimensional. Several factor analytic investigations of the BPD criteria in adults have supported a unidimensional structure (Aggen, Neale, Roysamb, Reichborn-Kjennerud, & Kendler, 2009; Feske et al., 2007; Fossati, Maffei, Bagnato, Donati, Namia, & Novella, 1999), while others have reported a structure sufficiently unidimensional for IRT purposes (Johansen, Karterud, Pedersen, Gude, & Falkum, 2004; Sanislow et al., 2002), as evidenced by high factor intercorrelations (Embretson & Reise, 2000). To date, only one study (Becker, McGlashan, & Grilo, 2006) has conducted factor analysis of the BPD criteria in a youth sample, the results of which did not reveal a unidimensional structure. However, this study employed principle component analysis with orthogonal rotation and, thus, did not report the magnitude of factor intercorrelations. Taken together, these studies provide reason to believe that the BPD criteria may be sufficiently unidimensional to employ a traditional IRT-based model. However, in the event that the BPD criteria are not unidimensional in the ALSPAC data, multidimensional or categorical confirmatory factor analysis will be employed.
In order to investigate our aims, we will need the CI-BPD data that correspond to each of the 9 DSM-IV symptom criteria, including the questions used to inform judgment of whether the symptom was present.
B697 - A genome-wide association study of ankylosing spondylitis risk - 01/01/1900
We have performed a large genome-wide association study in a few thousand ankylosing spondylitis patients and need to replicate several promising genetic associations. Although we have genotyped putatively associated SNPs in a new sample of cases, we need to obtain genotype data from a similarly sized european control sample on ~100 candidate SNPs. Since both cohorts have been genotyped on the Illumina 317K SNP chip, the ~1700 ALSPAC individuals for whom genome-wide SNP data is now available would be an obvious choice. Note that we are requesting a small number of candidate SNPs (i.e. ~100 SNPs) NOT the entire genome-wide dataset.
B988 - Analysis of changes in fruit and vegetable intake as children get older in a UK cohort study - 01/01/1900
Title: analyse the evolution of fruit and vegetable intake frequency of children from infancy to 15 years, segmenting by household socioeconomic status (SES) and parental attitudes.
Specific objective: the aim of the analysis is to explore trends in intake (amount and frequency) across children's ages in years to evaluate the possibility of tracking of food habits (specifically fruit and vegetable intake), and any trends in changes in intake along the child's lifecycle (e.g. frequency of intake tends to drop/rise at the age of X). The idea is to construct different series of average intake by socioeconomic groups, and by mothers' attitudes to fruits and vegetables and eating in general. The analysis of segmentation by socioeconomic group and attitudinal variables will be helpful not only in illustrating any difference in starting points in fruit and vegetable intake when children are categorised according to these variables, but also any persistence and/or broadening of inequality as children grow older.
Broader objective: secondary data analysis of trends in children's fruit and vegetable intake by socioeconomic grades and mothers' attitudes as part of the research agenda for a PhD project on Consumer Behaviour and Associated Change Drivers and Barriers in the Consumption of Fruits and Vegetables by Children.
Methods: graph plotting average and median intake (y axis) against age (x axis) for categories by SES (quintiles or tertiles of SES) and mothers' attitudinal characteristics. Statistical analyses (paired t tests and correlations) to test for tracking of food habits (Skinner et al. 2002).