Childhood mental health trajectories and lifetime consequences: a cross-cohort programme of work

Background

Drawing on data from all four of our cohort studies, this project examined young people’s mental health trajectories today in the context of previous generations. The project was part of the Cross Cohort Research Programme.

Research details

Project title

Childhood mental health trajectories and lifetime consequences: a cross-cohort programme of work

Project lead

Alissa Goodman

Themes

Mental health and wellbeing

Dates

1 January 2016 – December 2018

Funder

ESRC

Summary

Policy circles and a range of disciplines increasingly recognise that childhood mental health shapes later outcomes across all important life domains including health, partnerships, employment, and incomes.

This project examined young people’s mental health trajectories today in the context of previous generations, using data from the 1958 National Child Development Study (NCDS), 1970 British Cohort Study (BCS70), Millennium Cohort Study (MCS) and Next Steps. 

This cross-cohort comparative project provided new evidence about how the mental health of contemporary children evolves from early childhood onwards through to adolescence. Drawing on the latest data from all four CLS studies, it assessed how these trajectories are shaped. Using the adult cohort studies (NCDS and BCS70), it sheds new light on the long-term adverse effects of mental health problems in childhood, and the factors that may reverse these.

Featured scientific publications

Patalay, P., Fitzsimons, E,. (2018)
Development and predictors of mental ill-health and wellbeing from childhood to adolescence
Social Psychiatry and Psychiatric Epidemiology
Read the full paper
Patalay P, Moulton V, Goodman A, Ploubidis G B. (2017)
Cross-domain Symptom Development Typologies and Their Antecedents: Results From the UK Millennium Cohort Study.
Journal of the American Academy of Child & Adolescent Psychiatry. 56(9) pp765-776
Read the full paper
Ploubidis, G., Sullivan, A., Brown, M. and Goodman, A. (2017)
Psychological distress in mid-life: evidence from the 1958 and 1970 British birth cohorts.
Psychological Medicine 47(2) pp. 291-303.
Read the full paper
Flouri E, Ioakeimidi S, Midouhas E, Ploubidis G B. (2017)
Maternal psychological distress and child decision-making.
Journal of affective disorders. 2017;218:35-40.
Read the full paper
Fitzsimons E, Goodman A, Kelly E, Smith J P. (2017)
Poverty dynamics and parental mental health: Determinants of childhood mental health in the UK.
Social science & medicine (1982). 2017;175:43-51.
Read the full paper
Patalay, P. and Fitzsimons, E. (2016)
Correlates of Mental Illness and Wellbeing in Children: Are They the Same? Results From the UK Millennium Cohort Study.
Journal of the American Academy of Child & Adolescent Psychiatry 55(9), pp. 771-783.
Read the full paper

Researchers

Alissa Goodman Professor of Economics, Director of CLS and Co-Director of the Early Life Cohort Feasibility Study

Phone: 020 7612 6231
Email: alissa.goodman@ucl.ac.uk

Alissa Goodman is Professor of Economics, Director of the Centre for Longitudinal Studies, and Co-Director of the Early Life Cohort Feasibility Study, a project funded by ESRC to test the feasibility of a new birth cohort for the UK. She is a Co-Investigator on two further new national cohort projects, Children of the 2020s and the COVID Social Mobility & Opportunities Study. Alissa joined CLS in 2013 as PI of the 1958 National Child Development Study, having previously worked at the Institute for Fiscal Studies, where she served as its Deputy Director (2006-2012), and Director of its Education and Skills research sector.

Alissa’s main research interests relate to inequality, poverty, education policy, and the intergenerational transmission of health and wellbeing. Alissa was awarded a CBE for services to social science in 2021.

Emla Fitzsimons Professor of Economics and Director of the Millennium Cohort Study

Phone: 020 7331 5129
Email: E.Fitzsimons@ucl.ac.uk

Emla is the Director of the UK Millennium Cohort Study, a longitudinal birth cohort study following children born at the turn of the new century. Her research is focused on the development of human capital throughout the life course, and in particular how experiences and circumstances in early life and childhood affect causally the acquisition of skills later on.

Praveetha Patalay Professor of Population Health and Wellbeing

Phone: 020 7612 6051
Email: p.patalay@ucl.ac.uk

Praveetha’s main areas of research interest relate to investigating the development and antecedents of mental health (both ill-health and wellbeing) and their consequences through the lifecourse.

George Ploubidis Professor of Population Health and Statistics and Principal Investigator of the National Child Development Study and 1970 British Cohort Study

Phone: 020 7612 6107
Email: g.ploubidis@ucl.ac.uk

George is Professor of Population Health and Statistics at the UCL Social Research Institute and currently holds the posts of Principal Investigator of the National Child Development Study and 1970 British Cohort Study at the Centre for Longitudinal Studies. Prior to joining UCL he held posts at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine and the University of Cambridge. George is a multidisciplinary quantitative social scientist and a longitudinal population surveys methodologist. His main research interests relate to socioeconomic and demographic determinants of health over the life course and the mechanisms that underlie generational differences in health and mortality. His methodological work in longitudinal surveys focusses on applications for handling missing data, causal inference and measurement error.

Relevant studies

Contact us

Centre for Longitudinal Studies
UCL Social Research Institute

20 Bedford Way
London WC1H 0AL

Email: clsdata@ucl.ac.uk

Follow us