Proposal summaries
B3284 - Long-term otitis media with effusion and hearing loss and its impact on developmental outcomes - 15/04/2019
Otitis media with effusion (OME) is a common condition in childhood. Generally, the condition is asymptomatic and resolves within 3 months. However, in some cases the condition persists and results in conductive hearing loss. For children whose OME lasts 3 months or more, they may be provided with treatment through insertion of a ventilation tube (grommet) through their eardrum or they may be fitted with a hearing aid.
Despite OME being a temporary condition, it is estimated that 30-40% of children have recurrent OME over several years. By age 6 to 7 years, prevalence of OME drops to around 3-8%. The literature on OME & hearing loss, and its impact on child development has mainly focused on the early years, with little investigation of those with OME persisting beyond age 7. Hence, we aim to investigate the relationship between long-term OME and hearing loss (defined here as persisting beyond age 7) and developmental outcomes in late childhood in a prospective longitudinal cohort study.
B3285 - EXPANSE EXposome Powered tools for healthy living in urbAN SEttings - 13/06/2019
The environment we live in has a dominant impact on our health. It explains an estimated 70% of the chronic disease burden. As most of the aspects of our environment are modifiable, this provides a huge potential for disease prevention. Derived from the term exposure, the Exposome is the sum of all non-genetic drivers of health and diseases. Interacting with the genome, it defines individual health at different stages throughout the life course, inlcuding foetal life. The Exposome can be considered from two complementary angles: the External Exposome, comprising aspects of the built environment, the social environment, the physico-chemical environment, and the lifestyle/food environment; and the Internal Exposome, all exogenous or endogenous (bio)chemical entities measured in human biospecimens and influenced by the external urban exposome, including biomarkers of the exposures in the environment that are taken up, metabolised and might lead to biological changes.
EXPANSE will take the next step in Exposome research by introducing the following key elements into its research programme: bringing together large health datasets (millions of individuals) in support of sufficiently sized Exposome studies, addressing the evolution of both the exposome and health over the life-course, moving from observing static associations towards developing dynamic interventions, and introducing methodological innovations and practical tools. By establishing the largest European urban Exposome consortium to date and building upon the methodological development and insights gained from the first generation of exposome projects, EXPANSE will address the most pertinent questions for urban planners, policy makers and inhabitants in Europe.
B3286 - Predictors and outcomes of tinnitus in childhood through to adulthood - 14/10/2019
Tinnitus is the subjective perception of sound in the head or ears, typically whistling or buzzing sounds. Our earlier study of tinnitus using ALSPAC showed it was common in childhood with a prevalence of ~28% at age 11; clinically significant tinnitus was much less common however, at around 3%. In adulthood, the prevalence is around 1 in 10, and the most common risk factors are hearing loss and increasing age. It is not known whether tinnitus in childhood predicts adult tinnitus.
Having tinnitus is associated with increased levels of anxiety and depression but is unclear whether this is a consequence of tinnitus, or whether people with higher levels of anxiety and depression are more likely to report and seek help for their tinnitus. There is also an association of tinnitus with particular psychological traits such as neuroticism but the direction of causality is not known. Finally links have been described between tinnitus and suicide, but it is not known whether these relate to the co-occurring depression and hearing loss that often come with tinnitus.
We therefore aim to examine risk factors and outcomes for tinnitus in both childhood and adulthood in the ALSPAC cohort.
B3283 - Early adulthood socioeconomic transitions and the development of inequalities in cardiovascular health - 15/04/2019
There is strong patterning of cardiovascular disease according to socio-economic position (SEP), typically based on education level, type of occupation or level of income. This research aims to assess the contribution of childhood and early adulthood SEP to inequalities in risk factors related to cardiovascular disease. To understand early adulthood SEP we will investigate the pathways that young adults take through different levels of education, different types of employment, and time not in education, employment or training during early adulthood (age 18-25), which will together contribute to their overall SEP over this period. We will look at the relationships between groups of the population experiencing different early adulthood SEP and risk factors for cardiovascular disease, such as being overweight, having high blood pressure or different levels of blood lipids.
B3282 - Genomic prediction of 25 hydroxyvitamin D using lasso regression - 02/04/2019
B3281 - Request to include sexual orientation measures in upcoming ALSPAC data collection waves - 05/04/2019
The aim of this request is to ask the ALSPAC team to consider including the measurement of sexual orientation (sexual attractions and sexual experiences) in future data collection. Sexual orientation is an important feature of human nature and diversity. While most people identify as heterosexual (attracted to the opposite sex), a substantial number of the population identify as non-heterosexual. This includes lesbian, gay, and bisexual identification as well as a range of emerging sexualities (such as asexual). Scholars from across medicine, behavioural and social sciences have also found that nonheterosexual people are at greater risk of common mental health problems such as depression, anxiety, and suicide compared to heterosexual people. These problems tend to start early in adolescence among nonheterosexual people. It is important to understand the social, psychological, and biological factors that might be involved in contributing to this mental health disparity. This will help researchers to identify the most important risk factors and develop interventions (e.g., psychological interventions) to reduce the burden of these problems on nonheterosexual people. Studies using data from ALSPAC have already helped to identify some of these risk factors and thus continued measurement of sexual orientation in the cohort will prove invaluable to future researchers. In general, future basic and applied scientific research on sexual orientation will provide greater social and cultural understanding of the diversity in human sexuality.
B3280 - Are dietary patterns in childhood associated with later alcohol use - 01/04/2019
Links have been made between increased sugar and fat consumption in childhood and regular alcohol consumption in adolesence. We plan to see whether this association is present in the ALSPAC cohort and to see whether dietary patterns in childhood (whereby the whole diet is summarised into a handful of scores based on underlying correlations between food groups) are associated with the use of alcohol at 17 years of age
B3278 - Understanding the multimorbidity of non-communicable diseases from childhood to adulthood MOCHA - 25/03/2019
Multimorbidity (i.e. the co-occurrence of more than one chronic disease in the same person) has been recognised as
a major public health problem in the old age. In contrast, knowledge of multimorbidity among children,
adolescents and young adults is lacking. MOCHA challenges the prevailing concept that multimorbidity is
mainly an issue of ageing. MOCHA hypothesises that multimorbidity originates early in life and continues to develop throughout the life
course.
B3279 - SpiroMeta - 25/03/2019
B3276 - Does the way overweight/obese mothers feed their children contribute to the development of childhood obesity - 21/03/2019
Child overweight and obesity is a serious increasing health problem in the UK. Overweight/obesity often continues in adulthood and increases the risk for developing many chronic disease. Having a mother that is overweight or obese means it is more likely that the child will be overweight or obese also, perhaps through the establishment of unhealthy eating patterns and food preference in early childhood. The role of the mother in feeding her young child is likely to be critical in this process.
B3277 - Impact of leanness on type 2 diabetes liability - 21/03/2019
We know that obesity (high body fatness) is a major risk factor for type 2 diabetes. We also know that obesity is very difficult to reverse, and that we need to find ways of preventing type 2 diabetes when fat loss is not feasible. Muscle tissue â the other major body compartment â is likely beneficial for health, but little is known about which aspects of muscle (e.g. whether volume or strength) matter most for the earliest stages of type 2 diabetes, and how these benefits compare with the harms of fat. This project aims to use repeated measures data from ALSPAC offspring and parents to determine which aspects of muscle â whether higher volume based on body scanning, higher strength based on hand grip tests, or higher quality based on a combination of strength and volume â has stronger effects on an extensive set of detailed metabolic traits related to type 2 diabetes susceptibility. It also aims to determine how benefits of muscle compare with harms of fat, and whether muscle interacts with fat in relation to early stages of disease. Altogether, these results should help us to better understand which aspects of body composition are most important to target with limited public resources in order to prevent type 2 diabetes, and whether boosting muscle would help prevent type 2 diabetes when fat loss is not feasible.
B2940 - Development of autoimmunity in the general population - 04/04/2019
Type 1 diabetes, coeliac disease, autoimmune gastritis and thyroiditis are examples of autoimmune conditions where the immune system mistakenly responds to, and attacks, healthy cells of the body. Individually autoimmune diseases are relatively rare, but together they affect at least 5% of the UK population. The immune response that causes these diseases includes the production of antibodies to cells of the pancreas, gut, and thyroid. These antibodies can be measured in the blood and can act as markers of disease before symptoms occur. The antibodies to cells of the pancreas are highly predictive for type 1 diabetes; when an individual has multiple markers they have a 50-70% risk of developing diabetes in the next decade. These markers can be detected in early life (from 6 months of age) but may arise later and often persist for many years before disease onset. Although markers of autoimmunity have been well studied in family members of individuals with autoimmunity, particularly in childhood, they are rarely studied in people without a family history of disease. Studying markers of pancreatic and co-existing autoimmunity in blood samples from ALSPAC children and parents will complement data from our family-based study and tell us whether some people develop these markers during childhood, adolescence or in later life. Is autoimmunity âexplosiveâ with rapid appearance of autoantibodies followed by clinical onset of symptoms or does it follow a more indolent pathway? This will help us understand why different individuals are diagnosed with autoimmune disease very early in life, while others are diagnosed as adults.
B3275 - Cognitive skills and the development of strategic sophistication - 04/04/2019
Theory of mind (ToM) is associated with childrenâs early social relationships, communication skills, self-judgement, self-control and loneliness in young adulthood. ToM also correlates with childrenâs sophistication in strategic environments, where they need to predict othersâ behaviour and best respond to those predictions. Therefore, ToM appears to interact with important determinants of decision-making. There are, however, striking differences in ToM among children of a given age. This project tries to understand this variation in ToM. Specifically, we are interested in studying how school characteristics, parental characteristics (such as income), and personal characteristics (such as personality and cognitive skills) affect the development of ToM. The project will further study how the level of ToM in early life and the variation of ToM over time associate with educational achievement, educational choices and labour market outcomes in young adulthood.
B3272 - Infertility and Cardiometabolic Health - 12/03/2019
This project aims to establish if and how infertility affects the risk of cardiovascular disease in both men and women. By using genetic markers as instrumental variables, we will establish any causal relationship between cardiovascular risk factors (smoking, body-mass index, blood pressure, lipids, glucose and insulin) and infertility in both sexes. If we observe a clear link between classical cardiovascular risk factors and infertility, this highlights a role of a pre-existing underlying risk of cardiovascular disease in infertility. We will also examine whether children of infertile couples have a poorer cardiometabolic health compared to children of fertile couples, to understand whether cardiometabolic factors might contribute to the familiar aggregation of infertility. To better answer this question, we will also identify any genetic markers which affect infertility in men and women, to use these as instrumental variables in causal inference methods.
B3273 - Two-sample Mendelian randomization of Sex Specific Patterns of Autosomal Methylation MR-SSPAM and later life health outcomes - 12/03/2019
Differences in DNA methylation between sexes on the autosomes have previously been found and hypothesised to be contribute to the sexual discordance observed in various traits and diseases. Specifically, an analysis in the ALSPAC cohort determined that over 8,500 sites are differentially methylated between sexes at birth, with the differences persisting in to childhood and late adolescence. Whether these observed differences in DNA methylation between sexes are causal to diseases for which differences in prevalence by sex is also observed is currently unknown. We propose to use Mendelian randomization (a causal inference method) to determine if these differences in DNA methylation are potentially causal to a panel of diseases (and traits) which are known to demonstrate differences in prevalence between sexes observationally.
B3274 - Replication of the novel gene PDE11A related to a nose phenotype in the ALSPAC cohort - 12/03/2019
This study is designed to replicate the discovery of the PDE11A gene associated with nose shape derived from 3D radiographs. The replication will be underaken on facial measures derived from ALSPAC 3D surface facial scans.
B3247 - Different effects for different people investigating the impact of the neighbourhoods on educational attainment - 12/03/2019
Understanding how places impact peopleâs health, education and employment has long been a focus of policy and academic discourse. The idea that the area someone grows up in can have an impact on their later life is appealingly intuitive. However, accurately determining the effect that place has on peopleâs lives is difficult, and previous research has shown a wide range of supposed effects ranging from harmful to beneficial to none. For example, people who live in extremely deprived neighbourhoods have poorer chances of gaining employment, are more likely to participate in deviant behaviour, and are more likely to be unhealthy in later life. However, other academic research has suggested that the presence of positive effects is the result of unmeasured confounding factors including selective residential mobility, alongside individual characteristics such as family environment and genetic composition.
Whilst longitudinal analysis has long been embraced by the neighbourhood effects literature it has tended to focus on the adults. As a result, the context in which children grow up has been relatively overlooked and although environments experienced in adulthood are important, experiences during childhood condition adult outcomes strongly. The research proposed in this proposal is designed to investigate the way in which neighbourhoods effect children as they transition from childhood into adulthood once factors relating to family and school context, personality, and genetics have been considered. It will use cutting edge methods to provide new insight into the way in which effects at multiple scales combine and interact to influence importance social outcomes. In particular, the work will bring together the ideas of what, who and where someone is as a means to understand their development.
B3271 - Can early childhood experience predict physical activity behavior and cardiovascular health two decades later - 12/03/2019
The goal of this project is to study whether babies' experience during the first three years such as parenting, activities, and home and neighborhood environment can affect longer-term health behaviors and cardiovascular health two decades later.
B3270 - Identification of Genetic Risk Factors for Postpartum Depression - 11/03/2019
B3269 - SOCIOMENT Socioeconomic inequalities in childrens mental health disentangling social causation and selection - 07/03/2019
Children of parents who have limited education, occupational status and/or income are more likely to develop mental health problems than their more advantaged counterparts. However, we do not know whether it is parental socioeconomic position (SEP) which causes children to develop mental health problems, or whereas some other factors, such as parental personality, cause both parental SEP and children's mental health. The aim of this project is to provide new knowledge on the impact of parental SEP and other parental characteristics on childrenâs mental health and the extent to which psychosocial pathways influence development of childrenâs mental health, depending on parental SEP. We will analyze the data using a statistical method of dynamic panel modelling, which substantially enhances the prospect that the observed associations are causal.
We will take the advantage of our on-going longitudinal study, the Trondheim Early Secure Study, of 997 children from a community sample (age 4-16) and will compare the results across countries, employing also the ALSPAC data.