Gender inequalities in the disruption of long-term life satisfaction trajectories during the COVID-19 pandemic and the role of time use: evidence from a prospective cohort study.

Background: The COVID-19 pandemic has disproportionately affected women's mental health. However, most evidence has focused on mental illbeing outcomes, and there is little evidence on the mechanisms underlying this unequal impact.

Aims: To investigate gender differences in the long-term trajectories of life satisfaction, how these were affected during the pandemic and the role of time-use differences in explaining gender inequalities.

How to mitigate selection bias in COVID-19 surveys: evidence from five national cohorts.

Non-response to surveys is a common problem; even more so during the COVID-19 pandemic with social distancing measures challenging data collection. As respondents often differ from non-respondents, this can introduce bias. The goal of the current study was to see if we can reduce bias and restore sample representativeness in a series of COVID-19 surveys embedded within five UK cohort studies by using the rich data available from previous waves of data collection.

Midlife health in Britain and the United States: a comparison of two nationally representative cohorts.

Background: Older adults in the USA have worse health and wider socioeconomic inequalities in health compared with those in Britain. Less is known about how health in the two countries compares in mid-life, a time of emerging health decline, including inequalities in health.

Methods: We compare measures of current regular smoking status, obesity, self-rated health, cholesterol, blood pressure and glycated haemoglobin using population-weighted modified Poisson regression in the 1970 British Cohort Study (BCS70) in Britain (N = 9665) and the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent to Adult Health (Add Health) in the USA (N = 12 300), when cohort members were aged 34-46 and 33-43, respectively.

Cohort Differences in Physical Health and Disability in the United States and Europe.

Objectives: Declines in mortality have historically been associated with improvements in physical health across generations. While life expectancy in most high-income countries continues to increase, there is evidence that younger generations, particularly in the United States, are less healthy than previous generations at the same age. We compared generational trends in physical health in the United States, England, and continental Europe to explore whether other regions have experienced a similar pattern of worsening health across cohorts.

Lifecourse trajectories and cross-generational trends in social isolation: Findings from five successive British birth cohort studies.

Despite growing concerns in the UK about social isolation, there remains a lack of data on the extent and time trends of social isolation from longitudinal, population-based studies. There is also little research that assesses the multiple domains of social isolation across the lifecourse and between generations in a holistic way accounting for different contexts. By applying a multi-context, multi-domain framework of social isolation to 5 successive British birth cohorts, we provide conceptual and empirical understanding of social isolation trajectories across the lifecourse and identify potential generational and sex differences in trends.

Life-course social participation and physical activity in midlife: longitudinal associations in the 1970 British Cohort Study (BCS70).

A hypothesized benefit of social participation is that it encourages people to be more physically active. However, limited evidence exists on the association between social participation over the life-course and physical activity in midlife. We sought to apply a life-course framework to examine the association of social participation and device measured physical activity in midlife in the UK.

Examining the quality and population representativeness of linked survey and administrative data: guidance and illustration using linked 1958 National Child Development Study and Hospital Episode Statistics data.

Introduction: Recent years have seen an increase in linkages between survey and administrative data. It is important to evaluate the quality of such data linkages to discern the likely reliability of ensuing research. Evaluation of linkage quality and bias can be conducted using different approaches, but many of these are not possible when there is a separation of processes for linkage and analysis to help preserve privacy, as is typically the case in the UK (and elsewhere).

Generational differences in physical health and disability in the United States and Europe.

Objectives: Declines in mortality have typically been associated with improvements in physical health across generations. While life expectancy in most high-income countries continues to increase, there is evidence that younger generations, particularly in the United States (US), are less healthy than previous generations at the same age. We compared generational trends in physical health in the US, England, and continental Europe to explore whether other regions have experienced a similar pattern of worsening health across cohorts.

Midlife Health in Britain and the US: A comparison of Two Nationally Representative Cohorts.

Background: Older adults in the United States (US) have worse health and wider socioeconomic inequalities in health compared to Britain. Less is known about how health in the two countries compares in midlife, a time of emerging health decline, including inequalities in health.

Methods: We compare measures of smoking status, alcohol consumption, obesity, self-rated health, cholesterol, blood pressure, and glycated haemoglobin using population-weighted modified Poisson regression in the 1970 British Cohort Study (BCS70) in Britain (N= 9,665) and the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent to Adult Health (Add Health) in the US (N=12,297), when cohort members were aged 34-46 and 33-43, respectively.

Differences in the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic in the long-term trajectories of life satisfaction by sex in the UK: a prospective cohort study.

Background: The COVID-19 pandemic has disproportionately affected women's mental health, with most evidence focused on mental ill-health outcomes. Previous research suggests that differences in time-use might explain this disparity, as women generally spent more time doing psychologically taxing activities than men. We investigated (1) sex differences in the impact of the pandemic in the long-term trajectories of life satisfaction and (2) whether time-use differences partly explained that differential impact.

Using linked administrative data to aid the handling of non-response and restore sample representativeness in cohort studies: the 1958 national child development study and hospital episode statistics data.

Background: There is growing interest in whether linked administrative data have the potential to aid analyses subject to missing data in cohort studies.

Methods: Using linked 1958 National Child Development Study (NCDS; British cohort born in 1958, n = 18,558) and Hospital Episode Statistics (HES) data, we applied a LASSO variable selection approach to identify HES variables which are predictive of non-response at the age 55 sweep of NCDS. We then included these variables as auxiliary variables in multiple imputation (MI) analyses to explore the extent to which they helped restore sample representativeness of the respondents together with the imputed non-respondents in terms of early life variables (father's social class at birth, cognitive ability at age 7) and relative to external population benchmarks (educational qualifications and marital status at age 55).

Associations between SARS-CoV-2 infection and subsequent economic inactivity and employment status: pooled analyses of five linked longitudinal surveys.

Introduction: Following the acute phase of the COVID-19 pandemic, record numbers of people became economically inactive (i.e., neither working nor looking for work), or non-employed (including unemployed job seekers and economically inactive people).

Home working and social and mental wellbeing at different stages of the COVID-19 pandemic in the UK: Evidence from 7 longitudinal population surveys.

Background: Home working has increased since the Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic's onset with concerns that it may have adverse health implications. We assessed the association between home working and social and mental wellbeing among the employed population aged 16 to 66 through harmonised analyses of 7 UK longitudinal studies.

Methods And Findings: We estimated associations between home working and measures of psychological distress, low life satisfaction, poor self-rated health, low social contact, and loneliness across 3 different stages of the pandemic (T1 = April to June 2020 -first lockdown, T2 = July to October 2020 -eased restrictions, T3 = November 2020 to March 2021 -second lockdown) using modified Poisson regression and meta-analyses to pool results across studies.

Long-term psychological distress trajectories and the COVID-19 pandemic in three British birth cohorts: A multi-cohort study.

Background: Growing evidence suggests that population mental health outcomes have worsened since the pandemic started. The extent that these changes have altered common age-related trends in psychological distress, where distress typically rises until midlife and then falls after midlife in both sexes, is unknown. We aimed to analyse whether long-term pre-pandemic psychological distress trajectories were disrupted during the pandemic, and whether these changes have been different across cohorts and by sex.

Clustering of adverse health and educational outcomes in adolescence following early childhood disadvantage: population-based retrospective UK cohort study.

Background: Disadvantage in early childhood (ages 0-5 years) is associated with worse health and educational outcomes in adolescence. Evidence on the clustering of these adverse outcomes by household income is scarce in the generation of adolescents born since the turn of the millennium. We aimed to describe the association between household income in early childhood and physical health, psychological distress, smoking behaviour, obesity, and educational outcomes at age 17 years, including the patterning and clustering of these five outcomes by income quintiles.

Antibody levels following vaccination against SARS-CoV-2: associations with post-vaccination infection and risk factors in two UK longitudinal studies.

Background: Severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) antibody levels can be used to assess humoral immune responses following SARS-CoV-2 infection or vaccination, and may predict risk of future infection. Higher levels of SARS-CoV-2 anti-Spike antibodies are known to be associated with increased protection against future SARS-CoV-2 infection. However, variation in antibody levels and risk factors for lower antibody levels following each round of SARS-CoV-2 vaccination have not been explored across a wide range of socio-demographic, SARS-CoV-2 infection and vaccination, and health factors within population-based cohorts.

A quantitative approach to the intersectional study of mental health inequalities during the COVID-19 pandemic in UK young adults.

Purpose: Mental health inequalities across social identities/positions during the COVID-19 pandemic have been mostly reported independently from each other or in a limited way (e.g., at the intersection between age and sex or gender).

Characterising patterns of COVID-19 and long COVID symptoms: evidence from nine UK longitudinal studies.

Multiple studies across global populations have established the primary symptoms characterising Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19) and long COVID. However, as symptoms may also occur in the absence of COVID-19, a lack of appropriate controls has often meant that specificity of symptoms to acute COVID-19 or long COVID, and the extent and length of time for which they are elevated after COVID-19, could not be examined. We analysed individual symptom prevalences and characterised patterns of COVID-19 and long COVID symptoms across nine UK longitudinal studies, totalling over 42,000 participants.

Generational, sex, and socioeconomic inequalities in mental and social wellbeing during the COVID-19 pandemic: prospective longitudinal observational study of five UK cohorts.

Background: Research suggests that there have been inequalities in the impact of the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic and related non-pharmaceutical interventions on population mental health. We explored generational, sex, and socioeconomic inequalities during the first year of the pandemic using nationally representative cohorts from the UK.

Methods: We analysed data from 26772 participants from five longitudinal cohorts representing generations born between 1946 and 2000, collected in May 2020, September-October 2020, and February-March 2021 across all five cohorts.

Investigating change across time in prevalence or association: the challenges of cross-study comparative research and possible solutions.

Unlabelled: Cross-study research initiatives to understand change across time are an increasingly prominent component of social and health sciences, yet they present considerable practical, analytical and conceptual challenges. First, we discuss the key challenges to comparative research as a basis for detecting societal change, as well as possible solutions. We focus on studies which investigate changes across time in outcome occurrence or the magnitude and/or direction of associations.