Webinar recording and slides

This webinar took place on 30 September 2025.

You can download a PDF of the Introducing polygenic scores in four national cohort studies webinar slides here.

About the event

The CLS British cohort studies are large-scale, nationally representative samples that collect rich information about cohort members’ lives – their social background, education, income, mental health, relationships and more. To complement this, there is a wide range of genetic data that are available from each of these studies.  

From these genetic data, CLS researchers have derived a list of polygenic scores – summary measures that combine the estimated effects of many different genes on a specific trait or characteristic, such as a person’s risk of Alzheimer’s disease, asthma, substance abuse, or mental health disorders, for example. These polygenic scores can be combined with existing survey data to offer a more nuanced understanding of how cohort members’ outcomes may be shaped. 

This webinar recording provides an overview of the polygenic scores that are available from the UK Data Service across four British cohort studies: 1958 National Child Development Study (NCDS), 1970 British Cohort Study (BCS70), Next Steps and Millennium Cohort Study (MCS). We detail the range of available polygenic scores, how these can be accessed, give examples of how they have been used before, and illustrate the unique research opportunities they offer. 

What’s covered in the event recording?

• Introduction to the polygenic scores available in the CLS cohorts.
• Guidance on how you can access these data under the secure license from the UK Data Service and signposts to resources to help you implement them in your research. 
• Insights into previous case examples of using polygenic scores such as BMI and education in genetically informed social science research. 
• Overview of future research avenues using polygenic scores and other cohort data.

Who should watch?

Whether you are an experienced user of genetic data or not familiar at all, this training video will be a unique opportunity to discover the potential of using polygenic scores in your research. It will be of particular interest to social scientists including economists, education researchers, psychologists, demographers, and epidemiologists.

Why watch?

• Discover the range of polygenic scores – physical, health-related and psychological – that are available across four different cohort studies and find out how they were generated.
• Find out practical applications of polygenic scores for a variety of disciplinary specialities and how you can use them in your research.

Which studies are covered?

• 1958 National Child Development Study
• 1970 British Cohort Study  
• Next Steps  
• Millennium Cohort Study 

Who are the presenters?

• Tim Morris is a Senior Research Fellow in Social Science Genetics at the UCL Centre for Longitudinal Studies.
• David Bann is a Professor of Population Health and Strategic Lead of Genomics at the UCL Centre for Longitudinal Studies.
• Liam Wright is a Lecturer in Statistics and Survey Methodology at the UCL Centre for Longitudinal Studies.