Determinants of Adolescent Social Well-being and Health: a London Based Longitudinal Study of Young People From Different Ethnic Groups

Background:

Black and ethnic minority groups living in the UK experience high rates of chronic diseases such as diabetes, hypertension and heart disease, general morbidity and poor mental health. The cause of these excess rates is unknown but obesity, smoking, diet and deprivation are important contributing factors. There is also global evidence of the association of these diseases in adulthood with health and deprivation in early life and childhood. Persisting social deprivation over the lifecourse is disproportionately borne by some ethnic minorities (Harding and Balarajan 2001) but the impact on the health of their children is virtually unknown. Least is known about the health of Black Caribbean young people. It is important to examine risk factor differences by social predictors within the ethnic minority groups as well as between them. The DASH Study started as a school-based cohort study of adolescents from the main ethnic groups (White British, Black Caribbean, Black African, Indian, Pakistani and Bangladeshi) in 10 London boroughs. Wave 1 took place in 2002/03 (MREC Ref: MREC/2/10/12), when participants were aged 11-13 years (school years 7 and 8). Wave 2 took place in 2005/06 (MREC Ref: 05/MRE10/43) when they were 14-16 years (school years 9 and 10). Wave 3 took place in 2010/2011, when participants were aged 19-21 years and involved a postal follow-up complemented by telephone interview and on-line questionnaires. The current proposal is for a feasibility study, using a small sample of the DASH cohort, to inform the design of the next full face-to-face follow-up. DASH will be the first large scale UK longitudinal cohort of ethnic minority youths with both social and biological measures from childhood to early adulthood. It will allow detailed examination of ethnic differences in the social patterning of biological mechanisms and pre-clinical disease in young adulthood.

Aims:

(i) To conduct a feasibility study to establish the best methods for data collection, including the collection of physical and biological measurements, for subsequent face to face follow-up of the entire cohort.

(ii) To generate a proposal for subsequent follow-up of the entire cohort for submission to MRC, dependent on the findings of the postal and telephone surveys and proposed feasibility study.