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Improving outcomes for children known to social services (including those in care and those receiving in-home support or child protection measures) is a key policy priority. Prior research suggests care experienced children have worse adult outcomes compared to peers across numerous domains including health, education, and employment. However, the majority of research is based outside the UK, uses small samples, and excludes children known to social services but never in care. Improved understanding of both the predictors and the long-term outcomes of childhood interaction with social services is needed to inform targeted prevention and support programs.
The unique circumstances of the Covid-19 pandemic poses formidable health, economic and social challenges for governments around the world. The impact of the coronavirus varies both between and within countries due to unique coronavirus risk factor profiles, transmission patterns within populations and different approaches used by governments to combat the spread of the virus.
Social determinants of health are defined by the World Health Organization as the conditions in which people are born, grow, live, work, and age (US Department of Health and Human Services, 2020). Living in an area of deprivation is a key field of study. Recent research suggests that while area-level deprivation may persist, there is movement of people in and out of these areas (the churn) (Jiang, Pacheco & Dasgupta, 2019). Within NI we can use indicators of deprivation and disadvantage to identify areas and populations that appear to stagnate, i.e. are persistently lacking in social and especially economic change. Additionally, we will examine the socio-demographic and socio-economic characteristics of families who migrate from such communities and the lasting impact, if any, that relocation may have on the life-chances of their children.
Neighbours and work colleagues can all potentially have an influence on our behaviour. For instance, poor health behaviours amongst neighbours and colleagues may normalise and reinforce our own poor health behaviours. This is one example of a peer effect. Imitative behaviour can cause small initial changes in individual behaviour to spread amongst their social networks and result in a ’social multiplier’ effect. Understanding the size and mechanisms behind the ’social multiplier’ effect allows for more effective health interventions. It also helps us understand why persistent health inequalities exist across different neighbourhoods and social groups.
Self-Harm (SH) and suicide ideation (SI) (i.e. thoughts about dying by suicide) are two of the most important known risk factors for death by suicide. Increasing suicide rates are a major public health concern and Northern Ireland (NI) consistently has the highest rate of suicide in the UK and Ireland. Recent nationwide policies to reduce suicide are now including a focus on reducing SH and SI as these are precursors to suicide. However, little is known about what causes SH and SI, how these two factors are related and what impact they have on mortality risk. Understanding the individual level, household-level, area-level and health related predictors for SH, SI and suicide is of vital public health importance so that intervention services can be targeted accurately.
Language loss, retention, and gain amongst smaller languages has attracted much attention. Most of this work has concentrated on communities or individual life courses although census data have been used to map spatial concentrations of language users, and patterns of advance and retreat through time. However, there have been few quantitative population-level analyses which combine the general insights of the census with those from individual-level and community studies. Although the health benefits of learning and using a second language have been well recognised, there is also little evidence quantifying these advantages in relation to the general health and wellbeing associated with knowledge of another language in a post-conflict setting.
Socioeconomic status (SES) is often seen to relate to health inequalities. Wilkinson (1997) found that mortality in developed countries is affected significantly by relative living standards within the population. Social position and material circumstances are said to influence both physiological effects of a lower standard of living and also the psychosocial condition of individuals.
