The obesity epidemic continues to be one of the biggest public health challenges in the 21st century. Rates continue to rise globally and at all stages of the life course. In pregnant women this can be especially problematic due to the increased risk of pregnancy complications, subsequent non-communicable diseases, adverse birth outcomes and increased risk of obesity and metabolic diseases in later life for the offspring. The latest published figures in Northern Ireland 2017/18 show...

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...

The proposal builds on Projects 020 and 051 by extending the analysis to 2011. Project 020 (Shuttleworth I., Barr P. and Gould M. Describing and modelling internal migration in NI 2001-2006 using the NILS: individuals, households and places) explored internal migration patterns between SOAs using selected individual, household and ecological variables. Subsequently, Project 051 (Shuttleworth I. and Barr P. How accurate and timely are health registrations address data? An assessment using the NILS) compared the...

The England and Wales Longitudinal Study (ONS LS), Scottish Longitudinal Study (SLS) and Northern Ireland Longitudinal Study (NILS) are incredibly rich micro-datasets linking census and other health and administrative data (births, deaths, marriages, cancer registrations) for individuals and their immediate families across several decades. Whilst unique and valuable resources, the sensitive nature of the information they contain means that access to the microdata is restricted to approved Research Team and LS support staff, who can...

This project aims to use the NILS and NIMS databases to produce Vital Events Standard Outputs on an ongoing basis beginning from 2001. NILS sample members’ demographic, socio-economic and area-based characteristics will be linked to continually updated births and deaths data to produce cross-tabulations by each year available.

Address information from the BSO is currently useful in its own right as it is important to know where the population is for health screening and intervention.  Furthermore, its value is likely to increase as it contributes to the NILS, and, depending on developments elsewhere, could supplement the traditional census or be part of a replacement based on administrative data. Because of this, it is important to assess the accuracy and timeliness of BSO address...

The EPD is an integrated patient-centred electronic record of all drugs prescribed by General Practitioners in Northern Ireland. Using the EPES database this project will analyse antibiotic prescribing patterns for the 12 months ending May 2010. It will examine variations in use of antibiotics by individual socio-demographic characteristics and area characteristics, to help to inform the management of antibiotics prescribing in Northern Ireland.

There are now three Census-based record linkage studies covering the constituent parts of the UK: The Office for National Statistics Longitudinal Study (ONS LS) of England and Wales (established in the mid-1970s); the Scottish Longitudinal Study (SLS); and the Northern Ireland Longitudinal Study (NILS) - the latter two launched in 2007. Their existence means that there is now potential to undertaking parallel and combined analyses using all three sources to examine health differentials over the...

The utility of the NILS data can be greatly extended by linkage to health-service related databases which offer a greater frequency of events that are likely to have more HPSS policy relevance. The proposed study aims to test the feasibility and difficulties of linking the NILS dataset to three HPSS-related datasets. The potential benefits of such linkages will be illustrated by undertaking three projects (i) a study of deliberate self-harmers; (ii) a study of the...

Policy with respect to children and families in the United Kingdom is strongly influenced by the research based assumption that experience of long term and complex needs in childhood is predictive of poor social and economic outcomes in adulthood. In addition, it is assumed that children who are the subject of care proceedings or who have had their names added to the child protection register are likely to come from such families and can provide...