The Lifecourse Podcast

In Episode 6 of Series 2 of The Lifecourse Podcast we're talking about the impact on young people's lives of positive experiences and asking if it's time to shift the research and policy narrative away from the negative experiences facing those young people. Chris Garrington is joined by Rebecca Lacey, a researcher based at UCL, who's been investigating how positive experiences are linked with children and young people's physical and mental health and Ann Hagell from the Association for Young People's Health. 

Further information

• Association for Young People's Health

• Taking a ‘positive’ look at child health development ,Child of our Time blog

• The effect of adverse and positive experiences on inflammatory markers in Australian and UK children is research by Naomi Priest and colleagues and is published in Brain, Behaviour and Immunity – Health

• Factors mitigating the harmful effects of intimate partner violence on adolescents’ depressive symptoms—A longitudinal birth cohort study is research by David Gondek and colleagues and is published in JCPP Advances

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In Episode 5 of Series 2 of The Lifecourse Podcast, Professor Scott Montgomery of Örebro University discusses research showing an increased likelihood of drug misuse and suicidal behaviour among young people who have lost a parent around the anniversary of their death. He is joined by child bereavement specialist Beck Ferrari and Olivia Clark-Tate whose father died nearly 10 years ago. 

Further information

• Substance use disorder and suicide-related behaviour around dates of parental death and its anniversaries: a register-based cohort study is reserach published in The Lancet Public Health

• Drug misuse and suicidal behaviour more common on the anniversary of a parent’s death – new research is a blog by Scott Montgomery published in The Conversation.

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In Episode 4 of Series 2 of The Lifecourse Podcast, Dr Anja Heilmann from the Department of Epidemiology and Public Health at University College London (UCL) talks about the physical punishment of children and how and where the law is being used to protect children against it. She's joined by Bruce Adamson, the Children and Young People's Commissioner for Scotland and children's rights advocate and former Irish Senator Jillian van Turnhout. Together they talk about how the law has been changed in Ireland, Scotland and Wales and discuss the prospects for change in England. 

Futher information

• Equally protected?: a review of the evidence on the physical punishment of children Report by Anja Heilmann, Yvonne Kelly, Richard Watt, published by the NSPCC

• Physical punishment and child outcomes: a narrative review of prospective studies Journal article by Anja Heilmann, Anita Mehay, Richard G Watt, Yvonne Kelly, Joan E Durrant, Jillian van Turnhout and Elizabeth T Gershoff, The Lancet

• There is no longer a debate. End the physical punishment of children now! Blog, Child of our Time (UCL)

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In Episode 3 of Series 2 of The Lifecourse Podcast, Dr Rebecca Lacey from ICLS is in conversation with Kirsten Asmussen from the Early Intervention Foundation about Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACEs). 

Further reading and useful links

• Early Intervention Foundation (website)
• ESRC International Centre for Lifecourse Studies  (website)
• Adverse childhood experiences: What we know, what we don't know, and what should happen next (EIF report)
• Adverse childhood experiences: Building consensus on what should happen next (EIF report)
• Practitioner Review: Twenty years of research with adverse childhood experience scores – Advantages, disadvantages and applications to practice (journal article)
• What should happen next? Identifying next steps for taking the ACEs evidence forward through a consensus-building exercise (blog)
• Health screening using adverse childhood experiences: further evidence highlights the need to hit pause
• Unpicking childhood trauma and its later life effects (blog)

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In Episode Two of Series 2 of the Lifecourse Podcast from the ESRC International Centre for Lifecourse Studies we discus getting to grips with Multiple Sclerosis. Our guests are Scott Montgomery from Örebro University and the Karolinska Institute in Sweden, who has been researching MS for more than 20 years. Helen Andrew, who has been diagnosed with MS and David Coutts, senior research manager at the MS Society.

Further reading:

Review of research on MS on the ICLS Child of our Time blog – “Joining the dots between teenage infections and Multiple Sclerosis” by Scott Montgomery.

Comorbid disease burden among MS patients 1968-2012: A Swedish register-based cohort study is research by Kelsi A Smith, Sarah Burkill, Ayako Hiyoshi, Tomas Olsson, Shahram Bahmanyar, David Wormser, Yvonne Geissbuhler, Alan Moore, Vineetkumar Kharat and Scott Montgomery.

Hospital diagnosed pneumonia before age 20 years and multiple sclerosis risk is research by Kelsi A Smith, Ayako Hiyoshi, Sarah Burkill, Shahram Bahmanyar, Johan Öckinger, Lars Alfredsson, Tomas Olsson and Scott Montgomery.

Concussion in adolescence and risk of multiple sclerosis is research by Scott Montgomery, Ayako Hiyoshi, Sarah Burkill, Lars Alfredsson, Shahram Bahmanyar and Tomas Olsson.

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In Episode One of Series 2 of the Lifecourse Podcast, Dr Thierry Gagné from the ESRC International Centre for Lifecourse Studies at University College London and Cynthia Callard, Executive Director at Physicians for a Smoke-Free Canada discuss a body of new research on smoking and vaping in Canada published in a special issue journal. 

• Tobacco control and Canada’s endgame  is Part 1 of a Special Issue of the Health Promotion and Chronic Disease Prevention in Canada Journal edited by Jennifer O'Loughlin and Thierry Gagné.

• Tobacco smoking prevention and control in Canada: where do we go from here? is an editorial written by Jennifer O'Loughlin and Thierry Gagné on Part 1 of the special issue.

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In this episode of the Lifecourse Podcast from the ESRC International Centre for life course studies at UCL Dr Baowen Xue and Professor Anne McMunn discuss how they used specially collected COVID19 data to look at how couples divided up housework, childcare and homeschooling during lockdown, who was most likely to change their work pattern and the impact on mental health. 

• Gender differences in the impact of the Covid-19 lockdown on unpaid care work and psychological distress in the UK 

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In this episode of The Lifecourse Podcast, Professor Amanda Sacker and Dr Emily Murray discuss their research looking at the long term consequences on a person’s health from a childhood spent in care. 

• Non-parental care in childhood and health up to 30 years later: ONS Longitudinal Study 1971–2011 
• Association of childhood out-of-home care status with all-cause mortality up to 42-years later: Office of National Statistics Longitudinal Study

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Sonia Livingstone from the London School of Economics discusses the research behind her new book, Parenting for a digital future: how hopes and fears about technology shape children’s lives. 

She explains how she and co-researcher Alicia Blum-Ross gained access to the homes and lives of parents keen to share their hopes,  fears and experiences of parenting in the digital age and offers new important insights for policymakers, educators, and researchers keen to understand how parents and families can be best supported around the use of new technologies in a digital world.

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Snehal Pinto Pereira from ICLS discusses her research in the International Journal of Epidemiology looking at the links between obesity across childhood into adulthood and their ability to manage daily physical tasks later on in life. 

Adult obesity and mid-life physical functioning in two British birth cohorts: investigating the mediating role of physical inactivity is research by Snehal M Pinto Pereira, Bianca L De Stavola, Nina T Rogers, Rebecca Hardy, Rachel Cooper, Chris Power.

Birthweight, lifetime obesity and physical functioning in mid-adulthood: a nationwide birth cohort study is research by Nina Rogers, Chris Power and Snehal M Pinto Pereira.

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