Carers are increasingly important in providing help and support to people with a health condition or who have trouble with everyday activities. Children and young people who provide care (“young carers”) are an often overlooked but important group of carers. Young carers are a particularly difficult group to recruit and retain in large scale longitudinal population studies. There have been very few longitudinal studies of young carers thus far and most of the previous research...

Background: The proposed study is aligned with the ongoing ADR ‘OCCUMEN Study’ which examines the prevalence and correlates of mental disorders (MDs) across occupational categories. This related study will examine sex-specific temporal trends in mental disorders and causes of death across occupation types before and following the onset of the Covid-19 (C-19) pandemic and examine associations with family responsibilities. Aim: We will examine the C-19 mental health impact on people within specific occupational groups, with...

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...

Health is a major component of wellbeing. It is difficult to be fully participant in family and community life, to work to one’s potential and to enjoy life, without good health. According to the 2019 Annual Report on Health Inequalities (Department of Health, 2019), in Northern Ireland, there is a 7.1 year difference in life expectancy between men living in the most and least deprived areas. Healthy life expectancy declined for all individuals between 2011-13...

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.

This project analyses associations between deprivation, occupational advancement (mobility), health and mental health over the human life course in Northern Ireland in the period from 1981 to 2011. The focus is on comparisons of pathways and long-term effects of material deprivation, employment deprivation and educational deprivation across and between age-cohorts and generations. The project will look at the occupational employment trajectories and health trajectories of young people as they grow older and of older people...

Recent evidence suggests that residential segregation between Catholics and Protestants in Northern Ireland (NI) has declined (Shuttleworth, Barr, & Gould, 2013), and that the proportion of residentially 'mixed' areas has grown (Shuttleworth & Lloyd, 2014).* Accordingly, this development offers the potential to uncover two distinct, but possibly related phenomena. Firstly, it may allow some of the mechanisms of neighbourhood effects to be uncovered (Galster, 2012; 2008), and secondly it affords the opportunity to conduct research...

It is well known that migration sorts people between places according to individual socio-demographic characteristics.  This project aims to add to this evidence base by focussing on the characteristics in 2001 of those who entered, left and moved within the group of SOAs that were eligible for inclusion in the Social Investment Fund (SIF) according to criteria provided by OFMDFM. The analysis will group SOAs by selected social deprivation domains such as health with flows...

NI Government currently uses the NIMDM to define areas of disadvantage and subsequently target and channel additional funds to these areas. The methodological foundations of this should be constantly tested, as it is possible that current methodologies are not optimal and that other approaches, such as modelled income data, measures of income inequality (the GINI coefficient), or a combination of the two, may enable a better identification of disadvantaged individuals. The project aims to use...

Cancer is the most common cause of death in Northern Ireland accounting for 27% of all deaths with one in three people developing some form of the disease before the age of 75 years. Exploration of inequalities in cancer incidence and survival in Northern Ireland has largely been carried out using area indicators of disadvantage (Donnelly et al, 2007). While such research is valuable and provides useful insights into service delivery on an area basis,...