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Psychological Antecedents of Political Outcomes: Joint Developmental Trajectories of Mental Health Difficulties
Little is known about the link between childhood and adolescent mental health (MH) difficulties and political outcomes in adulthood. This represents an important knowledge gap in understanding early individual-level factors for future political outcomes. Using the Growing up in Ireland cohort, following 8,568 children from nine to 20 years, we examine how different MH difficulties,…
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Compensatory and Cumulative: Mother, Father and Teacher-Child Relationships Interact to Predict School Adjustment and Achievement
Children’s parent and teacher relationships contribute to school adjustment and achievement, yet few studies have examined interactions between these relationships, particularly for father-child relationships. Using the Growing Up in Ireland birth cohort (N = 7,507 children, 50.3% male), we examined child-adult relationship quality – rated by mothers and fathers at age 3 and teachers at…
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The associations of parental smoking, quitting and habitus with teenager e-cigarette, smoking, alcohol and other drug use in GUI Cohort ’98
We analyse parental smoking and cessation (quitting) associations with teenager e-cigarette, alcohol, tobacco smoking and other drug use, and explore parental smoking as a mechanism for social reproduction. We use data from Waves 1–3 of Growing Up in Ireland (Cohort ’98). Our analytic sample consisted of n = 6,039 participants reporting in all 3 Waves.…
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Trajectories of psychopathology among young people related to outcomes in young adulthood
What does young adulthood look like for individuals who had mental health problems across childhood? Using the Growing Up in Ireland cohort (born in 1998 and studied from ages 9 to 20) we explored the association between mental health problems between ages 9 and 13, and subsequent poor outcomes in the same individuals at ages…
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Poverty trajectories and child and mother wellbeing outcomes in Ireland: findings from an Irish prospective cohort
Background Poverty is associated with poor outcomes, yet exposure to distinct poverty trajectories in early childhood is not well understood. Objective To understand the prevalence of different trajectories of household poverty and their association with mid-childhood and primary-parent(mother) indicators of physical health and psychopathology in Ireland. Methods We used a nationally representative, prospective cohort (Growing-up-in-Ireland–…
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Quarantweens – the impact of COVID-19 restrictions on preteen health and wellbeing in Ireland
Background The COVID-19 pandemic has been dubbed the “biggest public health crisis since the Second World War”. In Ireland, schools were closed for 141 days, dramatically altering the day to day lives of children in Ireland. This research aimed to evaluate the overall wellbeing of schoolchildren in Ireland and capture the prevalence and factors contributing…
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Identifying high-risk subgroups for self-harm in adolescents and young adults: A longitudinal latent class analysis of risk factors
Background Self-harm is a major public health concern in young people and is governed by a complex interaction of different risk factors. While many studies have identified these risk factors, less is known about how they tend to co-occur together. Methods A latent class analysis was conducted using risk factors for self-harm from two waves…
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Neighbourhood characteristics and socioeconomic inequalities in child mental health: Cross-sectional and longitudinal findings from the Growing Up in Ireland study
This study examined the role of neighbourhood characteristics in explaining socioeconomic inequalities in child mental health (the total difficulties score from the Strengths and Difficulties Questionnaire) using data from Cohort ’08 of Growing Up in Ireland Waves 3 (age 5; baseline) and 5 (age 9; follow-up). Twenty neighbourhood items were grouped into neighbourhood safety, built…
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Household energy poverty and trajectories of emotional and behavioural difficulties in children and adolescents: findings from two prospective cohort studies
Purpose The aim of this study is to examine the association between household energy poverty (EP) and trajectories of emotional and behavioural difficulties during childhood. Methods The Growing up in Ireland study is two nationally representative prospective cohorts of children. The Infant Cohort (n = 11,134) were recruited at age 9 months (9 m) and followed up…
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Mental health in Ireland during the Covid pandemic: Evidence from two longitudinal surveys
Background The Covid pandemic arrived in Ireland on February 29, 2020. In the following weeks various restrictions were introduced to stem the spread of the disease. Anxiety over the spread of the disease and over the restrictions introduced had an adverse effect upon mental health. This study examines the change in mental health for two…
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Population heterogeneity in developmental trajectories of internalising and externalising mental health symptoms in childhood: differential effects of parenting styles
Aims Multiple studies have connected parenting styles to children’s internalising and externalising mental health symptoms (MHS). However, it is not clear how different parenting styles are jointly influencing the development of children’s MHS over the course of childhood. Hence, the differential effects of parenting style on population heterogeneity in the joint developmental trajectories of children’s…
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Use of pornography by young adults in Ireland
This report draws on the Growing Up in Ireland (GUI) study to look at pornography use among over 4,500 young adults at 20 years of age. Pornography use was captured as part of a module of questions on different types of internet use. The rich information provided by the GUI study allows us to explore…