Coeliac disease is a chronic illness that often begins in childhood. It is an autoimmune disorder, which means the body's immune system incorrectly attacks healthy tissues, causing inflammation. In coeliac disease, this attack occurs in the gut when gluten—a protein found in wheat and other grains—is consumed. About 1% of people have coeliac disease.

The symptoms of coeliac disease can range from minimal to no symptoms in some people, to vague symptoms often seen in childhood such as stomach upset, diarrhoea, fatigue, or poor growth. These symptoms can also be found in other illnesses, which makes it challenging for doctors to decide on the necessary tests or whether to refer a child to a specialist for a confirmed diagnosis. Delays in diagnosing coeliac disease can lead to delays in treatment and result in worse health outcomes, such as poor growth, weakened bones, and an increased risk of certain cancers.

Our team has performed a review of all the research looking at what is linked with a higher risk of getting coeliac disease in children. From this other work, breastfeeding was linked with lower rates of coeliac disease in some studies, and antibiotic use in early childhood was sometimes linked with a higher risk of coeliac disease.

In our proposed study, we will use data from the "Children of the 90s" cohort to examine whether breastfeeding and the use of antibiotics might be linked to the risk of developing coeliac disease along with associated GP/hospital records. We will employ statistical methods to analyse data from this cohort to determine whether breastfeeding may help to decreases the risk of developing coeliac and if use of antibiotics in young children is linked with an increase in coeliac disease.

What we learn from this project may be able to help doctors in knowing what questions to ask to understand which children are at risk for coeliac disease. This could help with making the diagnosis of coeliac disease as early as possible. This information will also be valuable for informing the guidelines on breastfeeding and antibiotic prescribing.

Locus of control is described as the way an individual perceives the outcome of events in their life as caused by their own actions (internal) or caused by outside factors uncontrolled by them (external). Research has linked locus of control, particularly external locus of control, with psychopathology, such as depressive symptoms, social anxiety symptoms, and psychotic-like experiences.

There is some evidence indicating that it may also be a risk factor for eating disorders. However, this research is mostly cross-sectional so it can't be ruled out that external locus of control is a consequence of eating disorders. To date, there is a lack of longitudinal research on this association, which limits our understanding of whether there is a causal association.

The present study aims to bridge this gap in the literature by investigating the association between external locus of control in childhood at age 8 and eating disorder symptoms in adolescence at age 16.

This work is the first stage in developing a tool to identify young children who are at risk of having problems with their talking. This is important because getting help early means that their difficulties do not make it harder for them to learn at school or to make friends. In this study we will use the data to help us work out which information is needed to make the tool work effectively. In the next stage of this work, we will ask young people, parents and people who work with children to help us design how the tool will look and function. This will mean that it works in a way that is most useful for the people who are going to use it.

There is variation in when and how children develop speech in early
childhood. Some children experience difficulties in the process but many
of these have speech which is well developed by the time they start
school. Some children have persistent problems which continue into early
childhood. These problems can be associated with problems with
educational attainment in older childhood as well as having difficulties in
making themselves understood. Some of these children will have
problems with their speech as a result of subtle problems with the
coordination of the movements required for speech while others will
have difficulties associated with the cognitive skills involved in developing
speech. Some will have problems with both.
Genes have been identified which are associated with some types of
speech and language difficulties but it is not yet clear what part genes
may play in persistent speech sound disorder. The analysis outlined in this
proposal will enable us to determine to what extent children's problems
with speech after they have started school may be associated with
genetic factors rather than environmental factors. This information will
help us identify how best to help children who present with these
difficulties to speech and language therapists and in school.

DNA methylation (chemical marks on the DNA code) can change the activity of genes and how our cells function. There is evidence that mother’s environment can influence her baby’s DNA methylation and have lasting health consequences.

Little is known about how DNA methylation affects the genes related to the thyroid gland but it could be an important factor in thyroid disease and health.

Using large established datasets (TWINS-UK, ALSPAC), we will explore how DNA methylation at important areas of the genetic code influences thyroid hormone production in children and how the mother’s environment may contribute to these DNA methylation changes.

Anxiety disorders (AD) are the most prevalent
psychiatric condition in the general population worldwide, and it is estimated that
between 6.57 and 13.54% of new fathers suffer from an AD (Leiferman et al.,
2021), a considerably higher proportion than the prevalence for anxiety in men
generally estimated by the World Health Organization (World Health Organization,
2017; range between 2.2 − 3.8%). The mental health of children is robustly
associated with the mental health of their parents (Jami et al., 2021). In particular,
children whose parents suffer from ADs, compared to children whose parents do
not, have a higher risk of struggling with their mental health (e.g., Connell &
Goodman, 2002; Micco et al., 2009; Lawrence et al., 2019). However, the specific
role played by fathers in children's mental health difficulties has been underinvestigated, and the particular risk posed by paternal anxiety for offspring mental health difficulties is not well understood.

Child maltreatment including traumatic experiences such as physical or sexual abuse is a consistent risk factor for depressive disorders. Depression often results from a combination of environmental, biological and psychological factors. Factors that explain this association between childhood trauma and depression are still being studied. Genetic factors could be a bridge between environmental stressors and the pathophysiology of depression. Research has already shown that parenting practices could be a protective factor for depression development; however, research is needed to explore the interaction between epigenetics and parenting in predicting depression symptoms in children. This study seeks to address these gaps in the literature.

One in 5 children in the United Kingdom speak two or more languages (Department of Education, 2020). Some studies have shown that bilingual children have greater mental health issues compared to monolingual children (Guhn, et. al., 2010). However, Halle et al. (2012) found that bilingual children had fewer mental health problems than their monolingual peers. Due to mixed results in the literature, it is unclear what the consequences for children’s and adolescents’ mental health when grown-up bilinguals. Using data from the Millennium Cohort Study (MCS), we have shown that bilingualism acts as a protective factor on mental health for children between 3 to 11 years old (Salgado-Garcia, Devine, & Krott, in preparation). Compared to monolingual children, bilingual children had lower levels of internalizing and externalizing problems when sex differences, nonverbal IQ, family background (SES), school characteristics, and language proficiency were taken into account. The current project aims to investigate the cognitive mechanisms underpinning the difference between bilingual and monolingual children’s mental health, specifically focus on executive functions and theory of mind.

There has been very little previous research on the topic of public involvement (PI) in non-clinical research. The applicants work in longitudinal population and epidemiological studies and are aware of the importance and difficulty of including the public in this work, partly because these studies do not focus on a specific medical topic or procedure but collect data on a large variety of illnesses, lifestyles, and risk factors. We are also aware that the PI groups which do exist suffer from selection bias, in that the members do not reflect either the participants in observational studies or the background population from which they are drawn. These biases mean that PI groups are not ethnically or socioeconomically diverse and do not equally represent gender groups. This has important implications for the design both of longitudinal studies themselves and secondary epidemiological research using their data if we are to avoid tokenistic involvement and healthy participant bias. Our intention is to involve PI groups in all aspects of the design and conduct of observational studies and to help us to identify future research questions. An appropriate PPI groups could also provide valuable advice on how to recruit and retain certain groups of people.
There is existing evidence (Lang 2022) that although the UK is world leading in including PPI groups in its research, perhaps because of funder stipulations, only 20% of the total number (3000) of studies investigated included PI, and of these ~ only 16% were observational research and ~15% were cohort research. However, this evidence was only drawn from one journal BMJ Open. The potential important benefits of good PI use are well known, but few seem to manage it. Also, PI is seldom if ever evaluated to see what makes a difference to the quality and impact of resulting research. We would like to conduct some research to investigate which methods of recruitment and conduct of PPI are likely to be the most effective. We would then like to start to build capacity in this area and set up some kind of educational package to ensure future proofing.