Proposal summaries
B4574 - Epigenome-wide association study of exposure to air pollution and NDVI - 26/03/2024
Changes in DNA methylation have been associated with exposure to air pollution and other environmental exposures. However, it is yet unclear whether early life developmental sensitivity or the accumulation of exposures have the most significant effects.
This study will analyse the association of air pollution and normalised difference vegetation index (NDVI) with DNA methylation at different ages.
B4578 - Genome-Wide Association Study of Blood Pressure and the influence of education - 26/03/2024
The Cohorts for Heart and Aging Research in Genomic Epidemiology (CHARGE) consortium is an international organization founded to facilitate large-scale genetic studies among multiple large and well-characterised groups of participants.
The goal of the CHARGE studies is to identify susceptibility genes involved in diseases of the heart, lung, and blood and their risk factors.
In our study, we will analyse the association of gene variants with blood pressure, considering the effect of the educational level in ALSPAC participants. The results will be combined with results from other groups of participants around the world to be able to identify new gene variants that help understand the biology of blood pressure.
B4566 - Transgenerational influence of parental cardiometabolic health and depressive symptoms on child development - 10/04/2024
Over the past three decades, there has been a substantial increase in the prevalence of mental disorders, which remain a leading cause of disease burden worldwide. Mental disorders in adulthood are found associated with poorer overall health and quality of life. Cardiometabolic mechanisms have been implicated in mental illness. For example, overweight and obese individuals are also more likely to be diagnosed with mental illness. Furthermore, perinatal depression and anxiety in mothers can influence offspring's cardiometabolic health and neurodevelopment. However, the effectiveness of parental interventions to improve offspring’s health outcomes is not conclusively established. Given these gaps in knowledge, the transgenerational effects of parental health warrant a more comprehensive investigation. In this project, we will use the ALSPAC cohort to investigate the transgenerational effects of parental cardiometabolic and mental health on offspring’s development. We will also investigate potential mediating pathways via early-life environmental and molecular mechanisms. This project will contribute to identifying potential targets for intervention and critical windows for interventions.
B4559 - Gambling behaviour and neurodiversity - 18/03/2024
Previous research has shown that harms associated with gambling are wide-ranging, including harms to the individual who gambles and harms to those close to them such as family, friends and colleagues. Gambling harms can manifest in financial, relationship, mental health and cultural problems, impacting individuals across a range of domains. There is evidence that gambling harms affect different groups disproportionately, placing the highest burden on those that are already marginalised and increasing social, economic and health inequalities across society. Despite evidence of this disproportionate experience of gambling harms, there has only recently been a shift in the focus of research away from a ‘catch all’ approach to a focus on the intersections with other harms and inequalities. One major intersection of gambling harm risk is neurodiversity. In this project, we will use data from the Avon Longitudinal Study of Parents and Children (ALSPAC) to investigate the experience of gambling harms by individuals who are neurodiverse and explore how these differ to those experienced by neurotypical individuals.
B4562 - Exploring associations between psychotic experiences and religious beliefs and behaviours - 18/03/2024
Psychotic experiences, such as hallucinations or delusions, are associated with numerous negative health outcomes. Previous work suggests a potential relationship between psychotic experiences and religious beliefs and behaviours, which may moderate or mediate associations between psychotic experiences and negative health outcomes, yet findings are contradictory and high-quality studies are rare. We therefore plan to use ALSPAC data to explore these relationships in more detail.
B4563 - A life course approach to the relationship between adverse childhood events and later mental health - 18/03/2024
Adverse childhood events (ACEs) are a known cause of subsequent negative health and social outcomes, such as mental health problems. However, the life course trajectory of these ACEs on subsequent mental health – e.g., whether they are felt immediately, take years to manifest or persist over time – is not clear. We plan on using longitudinal ACEs data in ALSPAC to answer this question.
B4570 - Centre for Longitudinal Smart Data CLSD -- Unlocking the Potential Pioneering Smart Data Integration For Health Research - 12/04/2024
Led by Universities of Bristol, Edinburgh and University College London, and in collaboration with academic, industry and government partners from across the UK, the Centre aims to dramatically improve understanding of health and wellbeing by revolutionising how researchers can use and access data.
The rise of the internet and digital technologies such as mobile phones and wearable technology like smart watches over the last few decades has meant that more data than ever before has been collected about us. This data can reveal important information about who we are and what we do. These types of data are called Smart Data. Historically, much of the data used by researchers into how our actions and behaviours might affect our health and wellbeing has been collected through studies called Longitudinal Population Studies (LPSs). These studies typically run for many decades, and follow the same individuals through the course of their lives which can show how behaviours and health change over a long period of time. The methods for collecting information in LPSs do not normally use Smart Data, and most major studies of this type began before it was available. Both Smart Data and LPS data can provide different types of vital information about how our actions can affect our health, but these two types of data are not often joined up. Our Centre aims to integrate Smart Data into LPSs and will enable researchers to understand and answer questions about health and wellbeing that were previously unattainable through separate efforts.
The Centre will support bringing together Smart Data derived from our everyday interactions with digital services—such as shopping records, wearable sensors, environmental data, banking, and apps—together with the rich Longitudinal Population Studies’ data linked to health and other administrative data in the UK Longitudinal Linkage Collaboration (UK LLC) Trusted Research Environment, supporting cutting edge research for public good. Our ultimate objective is to seamlessly integrate Smart Data into the UK's Longitudinal Population Studies (LPS, or Studies) and make it available to researchers with other key datasets, thereby establishing a pioneering Centre for Longitudinal Smart Data. Through this innovative approach, we will create a platform that will allow scientists to uncover fresh perspectives on lifelong health and wellbeing, enriching our comprehension of people’s health, behaviours and how they change over time. This novel approach holds the potential to transform how we understand and address societal and health challenges.
Our initiative tackles various challenges concerning participant acceptance, ethical considerations, legal frameworks, and beyond. With participants' consent as a cornerstone, the Centre for Longitudinal Smart Data is designed to offer secure access to a diverse range of research-ready Smart Data for authorised researchers. Through close collaboration with study participant advisory groups, we ensure that the use of Smart Data aligns with the preferences and priorities of the participants themselves. This approach prioritises transparency, accountability, and respect for individual choices, fostering a culture of responsible data usage and research ethics.
The Centre establishes a Community of Practice, bringing together experts to tackle the hurdles linked to individual-level Smart Data within the UK's Longitudinal Population Studies. It will strive to foster opportunities for studies across various domains, including wellbeing, health, sustainability, productivity, and digital society.
B4560 - Comparing approaches combining multiple imputation with inverse probability weighting - 18/03/2024
Missing data - such as from loss-to-follow-up in longitudinal studies - can lead to bias in analyses, resulting in incorrect conclusions. Various methods have been developed to try and account for such bias due to missing data; two common approaches are Multiple Imputation (MI), where missing data are imputed numerous times, analysed and then combined together, and Inverse-Probability Weighting (IPW), where individuals with observed data are weighted so they represent the original sample. However, sometimes these approaches are insufficient by themselves - e.g., MI may not be appropriate when imputing large swathes of missingness due to potential model misspecification/increased noise, while IPW is more challenging when there is missing data in the covariates of the missingness/weighting model. Given this, there is a need to develop and explore methods which combine MI and IPW to maximise the strengths and minimise the limitations of each approach. While previous work in this area has been conducted, the current approaches cannot easily be applied to complex real-world data such as in ALSPAC and need to be combined to increase their utility to applied researchers (e.g., using MI to impute missing baseline covariate data in the IPW weighting model, followed by IPW to weight participants within a given 'block' of data, then MI again to impute missing data in the substantive analysis model).
B4561 - Association of birth weight centiles with infant and childhood growth dynamics - 18/03/2024
The fetal and developmental origins of disease hypothesis suggests that pre-conception (maternal and paternal) and intrauterine (maternal) prenatal factors can influence postnatal health, including growth and adiposity. Birth weight is a marker of intrauterine growth and has been associated with risk of overweight and obesity, as have preterm birth, and small and large for gestational age. To the best of our knowledge, no study has investigated the association between continuous birthweight (for gestational age) centiles beyond the traditional thresholds for small or large for gestational age and longitudinal growth throughout infancy and childhood. This study will address this evidence gap.
B4568 - Genome-wide association study of reproductive hormones - 18/03/2024
Infertility, defined as the inability to achieve pregnancy within 12 months of regular unprotected sexual intercourse, affects one in six couples across the globe. A range of environmental and genetic factors may drive infertility, including the age-related decline of sperm and oocyte quality and quantity, infectious diseases, and rare Mendelian disorders such as cystic fibrosis. However, the exact cause remains undetermined in up to 28% of couples and 40% of women with infertility. Given that current treatments such as in vitro fertilisation pose physical, emotional, and financial burdens on couples and healthcare systems, a richer understanding of the biology and pathophysiology of infertility is urgently necessary. This project will conduct a genome-wide association study (GWAS) in ALSPAC and other participating cohorts. In addition, the project will conduct a GWAS of infertility (not in ALSPAC).
B4571 - ART-HEALTH Conception by assisted reproductive technologies and offspring health - 18/03/2024
Infertility affects 1 in 6 couples. With increasing numbers of assisted reproductive technology (ART) conceptions, understanding the effects of ART on maternal and offspring health has been designated a major research priority. Research to date has been highlighted as having limited quality and lacking methodological transparency. In ART-HEALTH we use a robust, systematic approach of triangulating different sources of evidence to address this.
B4569 - The changing digital world and its impact on youth emotional problems - 29/03/2024
Over the past three decades, adolescent emotional problems have risen at an alarmingly rate. One of the biggest changes in young people’s lives over the last few decades has been the parallel rise in digital media use, however, implications for trends in youth mental health remain unclear. Efforts to understand the role of digital media in relation to youth mental health have so far been limited by retrospective self-reports. One way to advance our understanding of digital media is to use ecological momentary assessments (EMA). EMA is a research method that involves real time reports in a real world setting. As such, it provides more objective and fine-grained data about both time and type of digital media use. The current project will test whether built-in features of a smartphone, as well as EMA, can be used to complement our understanding of digital media use among children and adolescents, and the possible impact this may be having on their emotional problems.
B4548 - Intergenerational education persistence and aspirations - 13/03/2024
We try to understand intergenerational inequalities in education. Unraveling the process of human capital transmission over generations is fundamental to uncover the sources of inequality. Understanding the sources of inequality in turn is crucial to design and justify redistribution policies.
The process of human capital transmission is a widely researched topic in economics and social sciences. Given that parents transmit their genes to their children and expose these children to a particular environment at the same time, it is incredibly challenging to disentangle the pathways through which human capital transmission takes place. With the recent advances of social science genetics we can now have a direct measure of one’s genetic predisposition for a certain trait. In particular, we want to exploit the fact that ALSPAC contains a) genetic information on the child’s mother and father; b) detailed information on educational achievement of the child and parents; c) detailed information of the parental and peer behavior towards the child; c) educational aspirations and social network data.
Jointly, we hope to answer the question to what extent intergenerational inequality is due to genetic transmission, and environmental transmission including the educational aspirations of parents, children and their peers.
B4567 - Anthropogenic Chemicals and Human Health - Non-invasive Human Biomonitoring Pilot Study - 27/03/2024
This project seeks to develop a non-invasive, human biomonitoring method to assess human exposure to anthropogenically sourced chemicals. In our day to day lives, humans are exposed to a mixture of “man-made” chemicals from the materials we touch, the food we eat or air we breathe. Some of these environmental pollutants may persist and accumulate in the human body, with potentially harmful or unknown health implications. Such chemicals may include pesticides, commercial drugs, flame retardants, combustion products of fuels, plasticisers or cosmetic components. Aside from accumulation in the blood, which would require invasive sampling to assess exposure, some of these anthropogenic chemicals can accumulate in human hair or nails. The focus of this pilot study is to develop an extraction procedure, to separate the target chemicals from hair, and optimised analytical approaches for chemical identification and quantification. For this, hair samples are required for method development. There is potential for this developed method to incentivise funding for additional sampling and analysis of a larger study group. A broader biomonitoring survey may provide valuable insight into chemical exposure sources and persistence both temporally and regionally. Monitoring exposure of chemicals with recognised human health implications may also provide new insight into the incidence of illness and disease.
B4522 - The role of cognition in the association between early-life air pollution exposure and subclinical psychotic experiences - 12/03/2024
Air pollution is one of the biggest environmental health risks that the world faces, and is particularly problematic in cities. Growing evidence also suggests that air pollution may contribute to the development of mental health problems, including psychosis and psychotic experiences. However, little is known about the potential mechanisms that could link air pollution to mental health. One explanation includes disrupted neurocognitive development, which may be a consequence of air pollution, and subsequently increase risk for mental health problems.
B4558 - Childhood Obesity and Overweight GWAS for the EGG consortium - 23/04/2024
Obesity is a common health problem. Obesity can start early in life, and it is thought that genetic factors may be important in people who become obese at a young age. Little is known about these genetic factors in children compared to adults. An international effort co-ordinated by the Early Growth Genetics consortium (EGG) is currently underway which aims to test for genetic effects on different measures of overweight and obesity in childhood. This proposal plans to carry out analysis of different measures of overweight and obesity in children in the ALSPAC cohort, and plans to share summary results of this analysis with EGG.
B4554 - Investigating physical and mental health multimorbidity determinants throughout the lifespan - 13/03/2024
Multimorbidity (MM) happens when two or more different diseases are present at the same time in an individual. This is common between physical and psychiatric diseases with almost half of people with a psychiatric disease also having a physical disease. As well as about a third of people with a physical disease also having a psychiatric disease. These patients have worse quality of life than those with a single disease, they often struggle to get the best care and are at risk of living less long. A common and serious type of MM is between internalizing diseases (depression and anxiety) and cardiovascular disease (ICV-MM). Still, very little is understood as to how ICV-MM develops and why it happens. We do know however that both internalizing disease and cardiovascular risk (e.g., obesity, cholesterol) tend to begin before adulthood.
To really understand how ICV risk develops, we need large studies of people of all ages whose health has been followed over time. Studies of children are crucial because they can tell us about early risks for development of ICV-MM later in life. This is important for developing better plans to prevent at-risk children developing ICV-MM. We also know that certain conditions that start early in life (neurodevelopmental conditions) such as intellectual disability, autism and ADHD increase risk of developing ICV MM later. Children's environments can also increase this risk, for example, stressful experiences such as poverty and physical or sexual abuse. But how exactly neurodevelopmental conditions and early environmental risks influence the development of ICV-MM over the lifespan is still not understood. Certain groups are known to be at increased risk of ICV-MM, such as people of South Asian heritage and women, but we don't know why this is. Better understanding of how ICV-MM develops in different groups in society will help doctors give patients care that is matched to their specific needs. It will also help doctors, governments and schools prevent ICV-MM in at-risk children in ways that work best for them.
To really understand the complexities of ICV-MM development, a team of researchers with a wide range of expertise is needed who together understand physical and psychiatric diseases as well as how neurodevelopmental conditions and the environments people live in influence them throughout their lives. The PhD student will benefit from working within our LIfespaN multimorbidity research Collaborative (LINC), which combines wide-ranging medical and research expertise in physical and psychiatric diseases. LINC has brought together five very large studies (of which the student will access two – ALSPAC and UK Biobank) in which the health of many people has been followed over time. Rich medical data is available, including from medical records. Important information has been collected such as on people's living environments, life events and lifestyles. These studies follow the health over time of children, adolescents and adults. We can therefore study how internalizing and cardiovascular disease happen together in adulthood. Importantly we can then also study early risk factors in the children before they develop these conditions. Because our child and adult samples differ in ethnicity and economic situation, we can also study how the development of ICV-MM differs for different groups in society. The student’s studies will further LINC’s efforts in understanding how ICV-MM develops and which circumstances influence this. What we learn will be important for the prevention of ICV-MM in children who are at risk because of their sex, or ethnic or economic reasons. The student will disseminate their research to Welsh government, patient and public involvement groups and charities to develop specific health advice in order to reduce ICV-MM in at risk groups in the future.
B4552 - Early regulatory problems and adverse health and social outcomes in adolescence - 11/03/2024
Developing good self-regulation skills is one of the most important tasks for a child to accomplish. Earliest signs of difficulties in self-regulation include excessive crying, sleeping, or feeding difficulties, which are labelled as ‘regulatory problems’. Increasing evidence has shown that regulatory problems in infancy/toddlerhood increase the risk of several negative outcomes such as attention problems, emotional and behavioral dysregulation in childhood, and depressive symptoms in adolescence. However, it remains unknown if regulatory problems in infancy/toddlerhood are also associated with adverse health and social outcomes in adolescence.
The current study aims to investigate whether regulatory problems in infancy/toddlerhood increase the risk of following adverse a) health outcomes in adolescence: harmful drinking, smoking, cannabis use, illicit drug use, problem gambling, unwanted pregnancy, obesity, excessive screen time, and self-harm at 18 years, and b) social outcomes in adolescence: getting into trouble with police, not being in education, employment or training (NEET), low peer social support, low closeness in romantic relationships and relationship with parents.
B4557 - Investigating the relationships linking adverse childhood experiences to psychotic-like experiences - 11/03/2024
Psychosis is a severe mental health problem whereby sufferers lose some contact with reality. Two main symptoms of psychosis are hallucinations, where people hear or see something that others cannot, and delusions, where a person has strong beliefs that are not shared by others. People with a psychotic disorder are approximately 2-3 times as likely to have had adverse childhood experiences (ACEs) compared to those without this diagnosis. However, the exact mechanisms linking childhood trauma to psychosis and whether certain characteristics can reduce this risk are unknown. The prevalence of psychotic symptoms reduces from childhood into early adulthood, suggesting that most psychotic experiences in young people are short-term. However, less is known about what factors may predict the persistence of these symptoms. Much of the literature investigating the role of ACEs in the onset of psychosis has been based on study designs which only provide weak evidence about causation. For example, much of the literature relies on case-control studies which can only detect associations, rather than causal relationships between ACEs and psychosis, as a third, unaccounted variable may explain the association.
This project will examine:
(1) The trajectories of psychotic experiences from childhood into early adulthood and whether exposure to ACEs predicts the persistence of symptoms;
(2) whether social factors and cannabis use make the relationship between ACEs and psychosis stronger or weaker; and
(3) pathways linking ACEs to psychosis, namely cannabis use, self-esteem and PTSS (posttraumatic stress symptoms).
B4555 - Can arts engagement protect against common mental health issues in children and young people - 05/03/2024
This project sets out to investigate whether involvement in the arts can play a role in preventing anxiety, depression, and eating disorders among young people. By analysing data from large community studies tracking the development of children over time, we aim to achieve four main objectives:
1) Current Relationship: We will look into the connection between participating in the arts and the mental health of young individuals at the present moment.
2) Future Impact: We aim to understand if there's a link between participating in the arts at one time and later mental health outcomes of young people. This will help us determine if arts involvement could potentially act as a preventive measure against mental health issues.
3) Variations Across Time and Countries: Through comparing data from different cohorts, we will explore whether the relationship between arts engagement and mental health outcomes varies over time and across different countries.
4) Arts engagement as a protective factor: We will explore whether arts engagement may protect against later mental illness in children experiencing socioeconomic adversity using mediation methods.
By undertaking this careful analysis, we hope to provide high-quality evidence regarding the potential benefits of arts engagement in promoting good mental wellbeing in young people. This research could inform interventions and policies aimed at promoting mental health through creative activities, potentially offering valuable insights into preventive strategies for anxiety, depression, and eating disorders among young individuals.