Low intelligence during childhood has repeatedly been linked to an increased risk of cardiovascular morbidity and mortality in old age. Studies suggest that part of this increase in risk may arise from a long-term cumulative exposure to cardiovascular risk factors that are more likely to arise in these people early and then persist across the lifecourse. How early this divergence in risk factors occurs, however, remains unclear, as does the extent by which any observed associations may be explained by upstream socioeconomic factors.

Children are brought up in very unequal family environments, and mounting evidence suggests that those inequalities during childhood are likely to persist and contribute to explain inequalities in later outcomes. In this project, we aim to investigate the processes through which these inequalities in family environments are created and how they impact on the outcomes of children.

It has been widely documented that marital sorting is highly assortative on education, skills and earnings potential, which means that spouses tend to be very similar on these characteristics. This implies that assortativeness in marriage (including cohabitation) contributes to accentuate individual economic inequalities, leading to large inequalities in the home environments in which children are brought up in. The process of divorce or separation is also more frequent among low-income families, which further opens gaps in financial circumstances across families.

In turn, complementarities between parental education and skills for the development of children is expected to reinforce assortativeness in marriage, by making partnering with a high skilled spouse more valuable for those who are high-skilled themselves. It is also expected to lead more skilled parents to invest more in children, to take advantage of these complementarities and potential high returns, further reinforcing inequalities in the environment children are exposed to, and the transmission of inequalities across generations.

The hypothesis we will consider are:
- That parental skills are complementary in developing the skills of children;
- That such complementarities, if they exist, lead to high skilled parents investing more in their children than lower skilled parents, and hence reinforcing socio-economic differences in skills and education achievement of children;
- That such complementarities, and the consequences they have for child development and education, are important in explaining sorting in the marriage market and divorce.

We will then measure the importance of these mechanisms in explaining the transmission of inequalities across generations.

As many as one in three adolescents struggle with social anxiety. Social anxiety on its own can be debilitating for youth; it also increases risk for later social isolation, loneliness, depression, and substance abuse. Due to social anxiety’s high prevalence and association with multiple negative downstream outcomes, prevention of its development could profoundly improve wellbeing among young people. Effective prevention will depend on a clear characterization of trajectories along which social anxiety develops across the transition to adolescence that lead to better or worse outcomes.

Distinct trajectories of social anxiety symptom development reflect varying dynamic interactions between early social experiences and individual characteristics of biological and cognitive vulnerability. Describing these trajectories can shed light on indicators of the likelihood that social anxiety will be impairing and will reveal points for preventive interventions to disrupt its development. This proposal focuses specifically on the dynamics of social anxiety symptoms and peer victimization over time. Peer victimization in school is a common social stressor that can have long term negative impacts on mental health and social adjustment, and social anxiety has been identified as both a risk for and consequence of peer victimization.

The primary hypothesis of this proposal is that there is heterogeneity in subpopulations of children based on the interplay of their social anxiety symptoms and peer victimization, and that these subpopulations are characterized by unique profiles of environmental, motivational and biological risk and protective factors. This proposal represents a first step toward understanding the biosocial ecological contexts in which social anxiety develops and that effective prevention efforts need to consider.

This project will explore differences in experiences of healthcare and how these may vary between genders and varied groups. We will investigate differences in healthcare and research participation, diagnoses, experiences of care and help seeking across different groups, within both cohort mothers and partners and children within ALSPAC.

Binge eating disorder (BED) is the most common but also one of the newest eating disorders, recently added to psychiatric diagnostic manuals. Individuals with BED have recurrent episodes of overeating with loss of control, accompanied by psychological distress and without compensatory behaviours. They also suffer frequently from other mental and physical disorders, for example, depression, obesity, and type 2 diabetes, which can impact their life. (1,2,4-8) While previous research has shown that BED precedes the development of medical complications, these studies have been carried out in adults and thus, little is known about comorbidities and longitudinal outcomes in adolescents. (6)

Binge eating (BE) is the characteristic behaviour of binge eating disorders. Both BE and BED are common. Bing eating behaviour is present in 8.5% of Danish, 3% of US, and 10% of UK youth, whereas BED has got a global prevalence of 0.9%.(1, 11-13) Both have a peak onset in young adulthood and are associated with many adverse outcomes, particularly mental and physical ones, as well as worse social and occupational functioning.(9,10, 12-15) BED alone accounts for 1/3 of all economic costs associated with ED in the US.(10) Low healthcare access and treatment seeking likely contribute to higher healthcare costs. Thus far, only two studies have investigated longitudinal trajectories of BED and BE behaviour in non-clinical populations; showing persistence of binge eating behaviour and increase in prevalence in young adulthood.(16,17) However, the course and outcome of BED and BE in adolescents and young adulthood remain unclear.

References
1. Erskine HE, Whiteford HA. Epidemiology of binge eating disorder. Current opinion in psychiatry. 2018 Nov 1;31(6):462-70.
2. Udo T, Grilo CM. Psychiatric and medical correlates of DSM‐5 eating disorders in a nationally representative sample of adults in the United States. International Journal of Eating Disorders. 2019 Jan;52(1):42-50.
3. Stice E, Marti CN, Shaw H, Jaconis M. An 8-year longitudinal study of the natural history of threshold, subthreshold, and partial eating disorders from a community sample of adolescents. Journal of abnormal psychology. 2009 Aug;118(3):587.
4. Sheehan DV, Herman BK. The psychological and medical factors associated with untreated binge eating disorder. The primary care companion for CNS disorders. 2015 Apr 23;17(2):27178.
5. Thornton LM, Watson HJ, Jangmo A, Welch E, Wiklund C, von Hausswolff‐Juhlin Y, Norring C, Herman BK, Larsson H, Bulik CM. Binge‐eating disorder in the Swedish national registers: Somatic comorbidity. International Journal of Eating Disorders. 2017 Jan;50(1):58-65.
6. Hudson JI, Lalonde JK, Coit CE, Tsuang MT, McElroy SL, Crow SJ, Bulik CM, Hudson MS, Yanovski JA, Rosenthal NR, Pope Jr HG. Longitudinal study of the diagnosis of components of the metabolic syndrome in individuals with binge-eating disorder. The American journal of clinical nutrition. 2010 Jun 1;91(6):1568-73.
7. Andersen ST, Strandberg‐Larsen K, Skovgaard AM, Rimvall MK, Meyer LB, Olsen EM. Comparison of prevalence and mental health problems across symptom frequency of self‐reported symptoms of binge‐eating disorder in a community sample of adolescents. International Journal of Eating Disorders. 2023 Oct;56(10):1947-60.
8. Santos Ferreira DL, Hübel C, Herle M, Abdulkadir M, Loos RJ, Bryant-Waugh R, Bulik CM, De Stavola BL, Lawlor DA, Micali N. Associations between blood metabolic profile at 7 years old and eating disorders in adolescence: Findings from the avon longitudinal study of parents and children. Metabolites. 2019 Sep 19;9(9):191.
9. Pawaskar M, Witt EA, Supina D, Herman BK, Wadden TA. Impact of binge eating disorder on functional impairment and work productivity in an adult community sample in the United States. International journal of clinical practice. 2017 Jul;71(7):e12970.
10. Streatfeild J, Hickson J, Austin SB, Hutcheson R, Kandel JS, Lampert JG, Myers EM, Richmond TK, Samnaliev M, Velasquez K, Weissman RS. Social and economic cost of eating disorders in the United States: Evidence to inform policy action. International Journal of Eating Disorders. 2021 May;54(5):851-68.
11. Olsen EM, Koch SV, Skovgaard AM, Strandberg‐Larsen K. Self‐reported symptoms of binge‐eating disorder among adolescents in a community‐based Danish cohort—A study of prevalence, correlates, and impact. International Journal of Eating Disorders. 2021 Apr;54(4):492-505.
12. Sonneville KR, Horton NJ, Micali N, Crosby RD, Swanson SA, Solmi F, Field AE. Longitudinal associations between binge eating and overeating and adverse outcomes among adolescents and young adults: does loss of control matter?. JAMA pediatrics. 2013 Feb 1;167(2):149-55.
13. Herle M, De Stavola B, Hübel C, Abdulkadir M, Ferreira DS, Loos RJ, Bryant-Waugh R, Bulik CM, Micali N. A longitudinal study of eating behaviours in childhood and later eating disorder behaviours and diagnoses. The British Journal of Psychiatry. 2020 Feb;216(2):113-9.
14. Micali N, Solmi F, Horton NJ, Crosby RD, Eddy KT, Calzo JP, Sonneville KR, Swanson SA, Field AE. Adolescent eating disorders predict psychiatric, high-risk behaviors and weight outcomes in young adulthood. Journal of the American Academy of Child & Adolescent Psychiatry. 2015 Aug 1;54(8):652-9.
15. Kjeldbjerg ML, Clausen L. Prevalence of binge-eating disorder among children and adolescents: a systematic review and meta-analysis. European Child & Adolescent Psychiatry. 2023 Apr;32(4):549-74.
16. McClelland J, Robinson L, Potterton R, Mountford V, Schmidt U. Symptom trajectories into eating disorders: A systematic review of longitudinal, nonclinical studies in children/adolescents. European Psychiatry. 2020 Jan;63(1):e60.
17. Goldschmidt AB, Wall MM, Zhang J, Loth KA, Neumark-Sztainer D. Overeating and binge eating in emerging adulthood: 10-year stability and risk factors. Developmental psychology. 2016 Mar;52(3):475.

Rapid infant growth is defined as upward crossing through one major centile band on a growth chart. Babies who demonstrate rapid weight gain are at higher risk for obesity. However, this association is likely to differ according to whether or not they also demonstrate rapid length growth. For example, an infant with rapid weight gain and rapid length growth is likely to have lower obesity risk than an infant with rapid weight gain but non-rapid length growth. This is an important question for infant growth monitoring practice, but no studies have been published on this topic. Our project will provide novel evidence on which infants are at greatest risk for obesity according to both their weight gain and length growth.

This project aims to enhance our understanding of children's myopia by utilizing the detailed dataset from the Avon Longitudinal Study of Parents and Children (ALSPAC), which contains a vast amount of information about parents and their children. We will also use the ALSPAC data to identify risk factors, particularly those related to maternal breastfeeding, and their impact on children's myopia. Ultimately, our goal is to leverage this information to strengthen our understanding of children's overall health status and the factors that may increase the risk of myopia among adolescents and children, thereby informing future research and potentially guiding preventive measures.

Aim: Spinal deformity can lead to various negative health outcomes, including back pain, depressive symptoms, and significant economic burden. The causal relationship and direction between neurological abnormalities and spinal deformity remain controversial. This study aims to investigate the potential association between childhood cerebral disease and an increased risk of spinal deformity development.
Scientific Rationale: The etiopathogenesis of spinal deformity is multifactorial, encompassing genetic abnormalities, neuromuscular factors, biomechanical influences, bone metabolism, hormonal factors, and lifestyle factors. However, no single factor has been conclusively established as a direct cause of spinal deformity. Over the years, a growing body of evidence suggests that changes in the central nervous system are present in spinal deformity patients. Nonetheless, differentiating whether these observations are primary etiological factors or secondary to spinal deformity remains challenging.
Project Duration: The proposed research project is expected to span a duration of three years.
Year 1
1. Project Planning and Protocol Development (Months 1-4):
2.Data Collection and ALSPAC Access (Months 5-9):
3.Preliminary Data Analysis and Pilot Studies (Months 10-12):
Year 2
1.Main Data Analysis (Months 1-8):
2.Results Interpretation and Manuscript Preparation (Months 9-12):
Year 3:
1.Publication and Dissemination (Months 1-6):
2.Project Evaluation and Future Directions (Months 7-12):
Public Health Impact: This study offers a perspective to guide the early-stage prevention, etiological diagnosis, and treatment of scoliosis. General pediatricians, hospitalists, orthopedic surgeons, researchers, in optimizing health recovery strategies for children affected by scoliosis.

People with attention deficit/hyperactivity disorder are at significantly higher risk of developing depression compared to those without. The combination of ADHD and depression together is particularly concerning due to the higher risk of suicide. Understanding the reasons why people with ADHD are more likely to have depression is therefore important and could lead to treatments that are more effective for people with ADHD.
Recalling memories of the personal past in a more general rather than specific way (referred to as overgeneral autobiographical memory – OGM) is common in people with depression and may be a process that makes people with ADHD more likely to develop depression. There has been little research on OGM for people with ADHD so far. This project will explore whether OGM is a feature that makes people with ADHD more like to have depression.