Tag: young people

Study collecting the views of young people, parents of children with long COVID, and doctors, finds that long COVID in children is poorly understood by doctors

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Dr Katharine Looker

‘Enhancing the utilization of COVID-19 testing in schools’, is a study which will look at the characteristics of long COVID and COVID-19 infection in children. ‘Long COVID’ is commonly used to describe signs and symptoms that continue or develop after acute COVID‑19. The study is being funded as a result of a rapid funding call by Health Data Research UK (HDR UK), the Office for National Statistics (ONS) and UK Research and Innovation (UKRI). The study forms part of the larger Data and Connectivity National Core Study, which is led by HDR UK in partnership with ONS.

The COVID-19 testing in schools study is related to the CoMMinS (COVID-19 Mapping and Mitigation in Schools) study being undertaken by the University of Bristol in partnership with Bristol City Council, Public Health England [PHE] and Bristol schools. CoMMinS aims to give us an understanding of COVID-19 infection dynamics centred around school pupils and staff and onward transmission to family contacts, using regular testing. Our study will jointly analyse data from CoMMinS, along with information from Electronic Patient Records, and data from the COVID-19 Schools Infection Survey (SIS; jointly led by the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine [LSHTM], PHE, and ONS). The SIS is a study similar to CoMMinS but carried out nationally.

To help inform research questions and methods for the study, members from the University of Bristol study team gathered views about long COVID in children between 9 March and 30 April 2021 from:

  • seven young people from the NIHR Bristol Biomedical Research Centre Young People’s Advisory Group (YPAG)
  • five families whose children have long COVID or suspected long COVID, recruited through two online UK campaign groups for long COVID, and
  • a survey completed by four GPs and one paediatrician, and an online meeting with two paediatricians.

It is important to note that the opinions gathered were based on small samples which may not be representative.

Through the meeting and survey with the doctors, the study team found that clinical understanding of long COVID in children is currently very limited.

The doctors said that it may be hard to distinguish between long COVID and other conditions with similar symptoms. Many of the symptoms of long COVID, like fatigue and feeling sick, aren’t very specific, and are common to many different conditions. Long COVID in children currently lacks a clinical definition, making diagnosis difficult. It isn’t yet properly understood whether long COVID is a new condition in itself, or a group of conditions like post viral fatigue, which is already recognised.

Young people, and families of children with long COVID or suspected long COVID, who were also asked for their opinion, said that feeling sick or stomach pain, extreme tiredness, and headaches were the symptoms they would rank as most ‘harmful’. For young people, this was based on them imagining having the symptoms. For the families, this was based on their first-hand experience.

The families also said that the symptoms their children were experiencing were numerous, often very severe, and more wide-ranging than those currently listed on the NHS website for long COVID. It is not yet clear what is causing the unusual symptoms.

The families said that they had struggled to get a diagnosis and treatment for their children. They also said that long COVID symptoms were having a significant impact on their children’s day-to-day lives both physically and psychologically, and that some of the children had missed school because of the symptoms. Some of the families also found fevers difficult to manage because their children had to miss school to self-isolate every time they had a fever. They wanted to know why the set of symptoms were being experienced, and why their children in particular had developed them.

It is not known how many children have or will develop long COVID. So far, studies which have tried to measure the rate of long COVID in children suggest it is rare. However, quantifying the number of cases is made difficult by a lack of clinical understanding of long COVID including the lack of an agreed clinical definition. The opinions collected suggest that relying on clinical diagnoses alone will under-estimate cases. On the other hand, there needs to be a cautious approach to estimating the number of cases based on non-specific symptoms, as other conditions which cause similar symptoms may be counted as well.

Caroline Relton, Professor of Epigenetic Epidemiology and Director of the Bristol Population Health Science Institute at the University of Bristol, joint lead for CoMMinS and one of the lead authors of the report, said: “The opinions we gathered further highlight that it is difficult to count the number of children with long COVID on the basis of diagnoses alone while long COVID in children remains poorly defined.

“There are added complications of studying long COVID in children, when it is sometimes difficult to disentangle what might be the result of experiencing infection from what might result from the wider impact of experiencing the pandemic. Isolation, school closures, disrupted education and other influences on family life could all have health consequences. Defining the extent of the problem in children and the root causes will be essential to helping provide the right treatment and to aid the recovery of young people who are suffering.”

The findings highlight that examining GP and hospital visits, and school attendance, might currently be a more useful and feasible way of assessing how COVID-19 has affected children, rather than relying only on diagnoses of long COVID. However, the study researchers also need to be aware how often healthcare is accessed according to need, and absence from school due to self-isolation, which will affect what is being measured.

Feeling sick or stomach pain, extreme tiredness, and headaches will be important symptoms to consider in the study.

Read the full report

Find the full report on the CoMMinS study news page.

 

Underestimation of Drug Use: A Perennial Problem with Implications for Policy

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by Olivia Maynard

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Photo by Louie Castro-Garcia on Unsplash

In a paper recently published in the journal Addiction, Hannah Charles and colleagues suggest that the prevalence of illicit drug use among 23-25 year olds in a Bristol-based birth cohort (ALSPAC) is over twice that reported in the Crime Survey for England and Wales (CSEW). The team propose that these figures reflect under-reporting in the CSEW, although they note that they may reflect higher levels of illicit drug use in Bristol. Here I present some preliminary data supporting their view that the CSEW underestimates illicit drug use.

In March 2020, I recruited 683 UK university students to participate in a short survey on drug use via the online survey platform Prolific which has been shown to produce reliable data. I recruited only students aged 18 to 24 years who reported using alcohol in the past 30 days, and participants reported whether they had used any of MDMA/ecstasy, cocaine or cannabis in the past two years.

Table 1. Prevalence of self-reported illicit drug use across three surveys of young people in the UK

University
students
via ProlificAged 18-24		 Bristol, ALSPAC

Aged 23-25

 CSEW

Aged 23-25
2 years 1 year Lifetime 1 year Lifetime
Any illicit drug usea 52.7 (360) 36.7 62.8 16.4 40.6
Cannabis 50.2 (343) 29.2 60.5 13.8 37.3
MDMA/ecstasy/amphetaminesb 23.3 (159) 17.0 32.9 3.6 11.1
Cocaine 21.1 (144) 19.6 30.8 4.8 13.9

Notes: Values represent percentage of participants (number of participants). Percentages for CSEW and ALSPAC are taken from Charles et al (1) and are weighted percentages.
a ‘Any illicit drug use’ refers only to the illicit drugs assessed in the respective surveys (only cannabis, MDMA and cocaine in our survey), more drugs in ALSPAC and CSEW – see Charles et al (1).
b Our Prolific survey asked about ‘MDMA / ecstasy’ use, ALSPAC categorised ecstasy/MDMA use along with other ‘amphetamine’ use and CSEW asked about ‘ecstasy’ use.

Over half of my sample reported using at least one of cannabis, cocaine or MDMA in the past two years (Table 1). This is markedly higher than the CSEW’s estimates of either past year or lifetime use, and more in line with those reported in ALSPAC. Comparing across drugs, past two-year use of the three drugs is higher in my survey than either past year or lifetime use in the CSEW, and higher than past year, but lower than lifetime use in ALSPAC. Perhaps of more interest than ever use of the drugs over the past two years, I also examined the combinations of drugs students in my survey were using (Table 2). I find that the majority of students who report using illicit drugs have only used cannabis in the past two years (25% of all students), although the second largest group (15%) have used all three of cannabis, MDMA and cocaine.

Table 2. Prevalence of self-reported illicit drug among UK university students

Qualtrics survey of university students (past two years)
All
(n=683)		 Female
(n=336)		 Male
(n=312)		 Other
(n=35)
Illicit drug use 
Cannabis 50.2 (343) 48.5 (163) 53.5 (167) 37.1 (13)
MDMA / ecstasy 23.3 (159) 19.3 (65) 29.2 (91) 8.6 (3)
Cocaine 21.1 (144) 17.6 (59) 26 (81) 11.4 (4)
Illicit drug use profiles
Alcohol only (no illicit drug use) 47.3 (323) 48.2 (162) 44.6 (139) 62.9 (22)
Any illicit drug usea 52.7 (360) 51.8 (174) 55.4 (173) 37.1 (13)
Cannabis only 24.5 (167) 27.4 (92) 21.5 (67) 22.9 (8)
Cannabis + Cocaine + MDMA 15.4 (105) 11.3 (38) 20.8 (65) 5.7 (2)
Cannabis + MDMA 6.3 (43) 6 (20) 7.1 (22) 2.9 (1)
Cannabis + Cocaine 4.1 (28) 3.9 (13) 4.2 (13) 5.7 (2)
Cocaine only 0.9 (6) 1.2 (4) 0.6 (2) 0 (0)
MDMA only 0.9 (6) 0.9 (3) 1 (3) 0 (0)
Cocaine + MDMA 0.7 (5) 1.2 (4) 0.3 (1) 0 (0)

Notes: Values represent percentage of participants (number of participants).
‘Illicit drug use’ refers to participants reporting any use of the three drugs in the past two years.
‘Illicit drug use profiles’ refers to the combinations of drugs participants report using in the past two years.
a ‘Any illicit drug use’ refers only to use of cannabis, MDMA and cocaine.

There are some important differences between my sample and both the CSEW and ALSPAC samples. Some differences may mean that my figures are overestimates, including sampling university students who are more affluent than the general population (although drug use is not necessarily higher among students than non-students) and only including those who reported drinking alcohol (although according to the study authors, over 95% of the ALSPAC participants report past year drinking). Other differences may mean my figures are underestimates, including only asking about use of three drugs (thereby underestimating ‘any illicit drug use’), and the younger average age of my sample. I also report on past two-year use, rather than either lifetime or past year use as per CSEW and ALSPAC. Given these differences, I would like to run a larger, more representative sample on the Prolific platform (Prolific allows researchers to recruit a sample which is representative of the general population), to get an estimate of illicit drug use which is more comparable to ALSPAC and CSEW.

Despite these differences, my data support those reported by Charles and colleagues. Indeed, I find it unsurprising that illicit drug use is under-reported in the Home Office’s CSEW. The validity of self-reports for sensitive issues has long been a concern. Over-reporting of illicit drug use is not considered to be a concern and numerous methods have been developed for preventing under-reporting (see a 1997 NIDA report on this issue, as well as more recent techniques for estimating prevalence of use such as the crosswise method). It is important to consider the context in which surveys are administered, including participants’ perception of who is asking the questions and for what reason. It seems that if drug use is asked about in a research context, (e.g., with a clear research objective, informed consent and no possibility of repercussions), the validity of responses may be higher than when questions are asked by organisations that are perceived to be involved in the punishment of people who use drugs (e.g., governments, universities).

While the CSEW recognises that it does not reliably measure problematic drug use, my data and that of Charles and colleagues provide evidence that CSEW’s claim that it is a ‘good measure of recreational drug use’ may be wrong. Although it may be convenient to believe that only a small subset of the population uses illicit drugs, accurate information may galvanise policy makers (both nationally and locally, including at universities) into developing drugs policies that reflect reality and which support, rather than criminalise, the large proportion of the population who choose to use drugs. Indeed, this is what we’re doing at the University of Bristol, where it has been accepted that drug use is relatively common among our students and we’re providing support and education to those students who need it.

 

This blog posted was originally posted on the Tobacco and Alcohol Research Group blog

Using genetics to understand the relationship between young people’s health and educational outcomes

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Amanda Hughes, Kaitlin H. Wade, Matt Dickson, Frances Rice, Alisha Davies, Neil M. Davies & Laura D. Howe

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Young people with health problems tend to do less well in school than other students, but it has never been clear why. One explanation is that health problems directly damage educational outcomes. In that case, policymakers aiming to raise educational standards might want to focus first on health as a means of improving attainment.

But are there other explanations? What if falling behind in school can affect health, for instance causing depression? Also, many health problems are more common among children from less advantaged backgrounds – for example, from families with fewer financial resources, or whose parents are themselves unwell. These children also tend to do less well in school, for reasons that may have nothing to do with their own health. How do we know if their health, or their circumstances, are affecting attainment?

It is also unclear if health matters equally for education at all points in development, or particularly in certain school years. Establishing how much health does impact learning, when, and through which mechanisms, would better equip policymakers to improve educational outcomes.

Photo by Edvin Johansson on Unsplash

Using genetic data helps us understand causality

Genetic data can help us answer these questions. Crucially, experiences like family financial difficulties, which might influence both a young person’s health and their learning, cannot change their genes. So, if young people genetically inclined to have asthma are more absent from school, or do less well in their GCSEs, that would strongly suggest an impact of asthma itself. Similarly, while falling behind in school might well trigger depression, it cannot change a person’s genetic propensity for depression. So, a connection between genetic propensity for depression and worse educational outcomes supports an impact of depression itself. This approach, of harnessing genetic information to better understand causal processes, is known as Mendelian randomization.

To find out more, we investigated links between

  • health conditions in childhood and adolescence
  • school absence in years 10 & 11
  • and GCSE results.

We used data from 6113 children born in the Bristol area in 1991-1992. All were participants of the Avon Longitudinal Study of Parents and Children (ALSPAC), also known as Children of the 90s. We focused on six different aspects of health: asthma, migraines, body mass index (BMI), and symptoms of depression, of attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), and of autism spectrum disorder (ASD). These conditions, though diverse, have two important things in common: they affect substantial numbers of young people, and they are at least in part influenced by genetics.

Alongside questionnaire data and education records, we also analysed genetic information from participants’ blood samples. From this information, we were able to calculate for each young person a summary score of genetic propensity for experiencing migraines, ADHD, depression, ASD, and for having a higher BMI.

We used these scores to predict the health conditions, rather than relying just on reports from questionnaire data. In this way, we avoided bias due to the impact of the young people’s circumstances, or of their education on their health rather than vice versa.

Even a small increase in school absence predicted worse GCSEs.

We found that, for each extra day per year of school missed in year 10 or 11, a child’s total GCSE points from their best 8 subjects was a bit less than half (0.43) of a grade lower. Higher BMI was related to increased school absence & lower GCSE grades.

Using the genetic approach, we found that young people genetically predisposed towards a higher BMI were more often absent from school, and they did less well in their GCSEs. A standard-deviation increase* in BMI corresponded to 9% more school absence, and GCSEs around 1/3 grade lower in every subject. Together, these results indicate that increased school absence may be one mechanism by which being heavier could negatively impact learning. However, in other analyses, we found a substantial part of the BMI-GCSEs link was not explained by school absence. It’s unclear which other mechanisms are at play here, but work by other researchers has suggested that weight-related bullying, and negative effects of being heavier on young people’s self-esteem, could interfere with learning.

*equivalent to the difference between the median (50th percentile) in population and the 84th percentile of the population

Diagram showing the pathways through which higher BMI could lead to lower GCSEs; either through more schools absence aged 14-16, or other processes such as weight-related bullying.
Our results suggest increased school absence may partly explain impact of higher BMI on educational attainment, but that other processes are also involved.

ADHD was related to lower GCSE grades, but not increased school absence.

In line with previous research, young people genetically predisposed to ADHD did less well in their GCSEs.  Interestingly, they did not have increased school absence, suggesting that ADHD’s impact on learning works mostly through other pathways. This is consistent with previous research highlighting the importance of other factors on the academic attainment of children with ADHD, including expectations of the school environment, teacher views and attitudes, and bullying by peers.

We found little evidence for an impact of asthma, migraines, depression or ASD on school absence or GCSE results

Our genetic analyses found little support for a negative impact of asthma, migraines, depression or ASD on educational attainment. However, we know relatively little about the genetic influences on depression and ASD, especially compared to the genetics of BMI, which we understand much better. This makes genetic associations with depression or ASD difficult to detect. So, our results should not be taken as conclusive evidence that these conditions do not affect learning.

What does this mean for students and teachers?

Our findings provide evidence of a detrimental impact of high BMI and of ADHD symptoms on GCSE attainment, which for BMI was partially mediated by school absence. When students sent home during the pandemic eventually return to school, the impact on their learning will have been enormous.  And while all students will have been affected, our results highlight that young people who are heavier, who have ADHD, or are experiencing other health problems, will likely need extra support.

Further reading

Hughes, A., Wade, K.H., Dickson, M. et al. Common health conditions in childhood and adolescence, school absence, and educational attainment: Mendelian randomization study. npj Sci. Learn. 6, 1 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41539-020-00080-6

A version of this blog was posted on the journal’s blog site on 21 Jan 2021.

Contact the researchers

Amanda Hughes, Senior Research Associate in Epidemiology: amanda.hughes@bristol.ac.uk

Are schools in the COVID-19 era safe?

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Sarah Lewis, Marcus Munafo and George Davey Smith

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The COVID-19 pandemic caused by the SARS-COV2 virus in 2020 has so far resulted in a heavy death toll and caused unprecedented disruption worldwide. Many countries have opted for drastic measures and even full lockdowns of all but essential services to slow the spread of disease and to stop health care systems becoming overwhelmed. However, whilst lockdowns happened fast and were well adhered to in most countries, coming out of lockdown is proving to be more challenging. Policymakers have been trying to balance relaxing restriction measures with keeping virus transmission low. One of the most controversial aspects has been when and how to reopen schools.

Many parents and teachers are asking: Are schools safe?

The answer to this question depends on how much risk an individual is prepared to accept – schools have never been completely “safe”. Also, in the context of this particular pandemic, the risk from COVID-19 to an individual varies substantially by age, sex and underlying health status. However, from a historical context, the risk of death from contracting an infectious disease in UK schools (even in the era of COVD-19) is very low compared to just 40 years ago, when measles, mumps, rubella and whooping cough were endemic in schools. Similarly, from a global perspective UK schools are very safe – in Malawi, for example, the mortality rate for teachers is around five times higher than in the UK, with tuberculosis causing more than 25% of deaths among teachers.

In this blog post we use data on death rates to discuss safety, because there is currently better evidence on death rates by occupational status than, for example, infection rates. This is because death rates related to COVID-19 have been consistently reported by teh Office for National Statistics, whereas data on infection rates depends very much on the level of testing in the community (which has changed over time and differs by region).

Risks to children

Thankfully the risk of serious disease and death to children throughout the pandemic, across the UK and globally, has been low. Children (under 18 years) make up around 20% of the UK population, but account for only around 1.5% of those hospitalised with COVID-19. This age group have had better outcomes according to all measures compared to adults. As of the 12th June 2020, there have been 6 deaths in those with COVID-19 among those aged under 15 years across England and Wales. Whilst extremely sad, these deaths represent a risk of around 1 death per 2 million children. To place this in some kind of context, the number of deaths expected due to lower respiratory tract infections among this age group in England and Wales over a 3 month period is around 50 and 12 children would normally die due to road traffic accidents in Great Britain over a 3-month period.

Risks to teachers

Our previous blog post concluded that based on available evidence the risk to teachers and childcare workers within the UK from Covid-19 did not appear to be any greater than for any other group of working age individuals. It considered mortality from COVID-19 among teachers and other educational professionals who were exposed to the virus prior to the lockdown period (23rd March 2020) and had died by the 20th April 2020 in the UK. This represents the period when infection rates were highest, and when children were attending school in large numbers. There were 2,494 deaths among working-age individuals up to this date, and we found that the 47 deaths among teachers over this period represented a similar risk to all professional occupations – 6.7 (95% CI 4.1 to 10.3) per 100,000 among males and 3.3 (95% CI 2.0 to 4.9) per 100,000 among females.

The Office for National Statistics (ONS) has since updated the information on deaths according to occupation to include all deaths up to the 25th May 2020. The new dataset includes a further 2,267 deaths among individuals with COVID-19. As the number of deaths had almost doubled during this extended period, so too had the risk. A further 43 deaths had occurred among teaching and education professionals, bringing the total number of deaths involving COVID-19 among this occupational group to 90. It therefore appears that lockdown (during which time many teachers have not been in school) has not had an impact on the rate at which teachers have been dying from COVID-19.

As before, COVID-19 risk does not appear greater for teachers than other working age individuals

The revised risk to teachers of dying from COVID-19 remains very similar to the overall risk for all professionals at 12.9 (95% CI 9.3 to 17.4) per 100,000 among all male teaching and educational professionals and 6.0 (95% CI 4.2 to 8.1) per 100,000 among all females, compared with 11.6 (95%CI 10.2 to 13.0) per 100,000 and 8.0 (95%CI 6.8 to 9.3) per 100,000 among all male and female professionals respectively. It is useful to look at the rate at which we would normally expect teaching and educational professionals to die during this period, as this tells us by how much COVID-19 has increased mortality in this group. The ONS provide this in the form of average mortality rates for each occupational group for same 11 week period over the last 5 years.  The mortality due to COVID-19 during this period represents 33% for males and 19% for females of their average mortality over the last 5 years for the same period. For male teaching and educational professionals, the proportion of average mortality due to COVID-19 is very close to the value for all working-aged males (31%) and all male professionals (34%). For females the proportion of average mortality due to COVID-19 is lower than for all working-aged females (25%) and for female professionals (25%). During the pandemic period covered by the ONS, there was little evidence that deaths from all causes among the group of teaching and educational professionals were elevated above the 5-year average for this group.

Teaching is a comparatively safe profession

It is important to note that according to ONS data on adults of working age (20-59 years) between 2001-2011, teachers and other educational professionals have low overall mortality rates compared with other occupations (ranking 3rd  safest occupation for women and 6th for men). The same study found a 3-fold difference between annual mortality among teachers and among the occupational groups with the highest mortality rates (plant and machine operatives for women and elementary construction occupations among men). These disparities in mortality from all causes also exist in the ONS data covering the COVID-19 pandemic period, but were even more pronounced with a 7-fold difference between males teaching and educational professionals and male elementary construction occupations, and a 16-fold difference between female teachers and female plant and machine operatives.

There is therefore currently no indication that teachers have an elevated risk of dying from COVID-19 relative to other occupations, and despite some teachers having died with COVID19, the mortality rate from all causes (including COVID19) for this occupational group over this pandemic period is not substantially higher than the 5 year average.

Will reopening schools increase risks to teachers?

One could argue that the risk to children and teachers has been low because schools were closed for much of the pandemic, and children have largely been confined to mixing with their own households, so that when schools open fully risk will increase. However, infection rates in the community are now much lower than they were at their peak, when schools were fully open to all pupils without social distancing. Studies which have used contract tracing to determine whether infected children have transmitted the disease to others have consistently shown that they have not, although the number of cases included has been small, and asymptomatic children are often not tested. Modelling studies estimate that even if schools fully reopen without social distancing, this is likely to have only modest effects on virus transmission in the community. If infection levels can be controlled – for example by testing and contact tracing efforts – and cases can be quickly isolated, then we believe that schools pose a minimal risk in terms of the transmission of COVID, and to the health of teachers and children. Furthermore, the risk is likely to be more than offset by the harms caused by ongoing disruption to children’s educational opportunities.

Sarah Lewis is a Senior Lecturer in Genetic Epidemiology in the department of Population Health Sciences, and is an affiliated member of the MRC Integrative Epidemiology Unit (IEU), University of Bristol.

Marcus Munafo is a Professor of Biological Psychology, in the School of Psychology Science and leads the Causes, Consequences and Modification of Health Behaviours programme of research in the IEU, University of Bristol.

George Davey Smith is a Professor of Clinical Epidemiology, and director of the MRC IEU, University of Bristol.

Are teachers at high risk of death from Covid19?

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Sarah Lewis, George Davey Smith and Marcus Munafo

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Due to the SARS-CoV-2 pandemic schools across the United Kingdom were closed to all but a small minority of pupils (children of keyworkers and vulnerable children) on the 20th March 2020, with some schools reporting as few as 5 pupils currently attending. The UK government have now issued guidance that primary schools in England should start to accept pupils back from the 1st June 2020 with a staggered return, starting with reception, year 1 and year 6.

Concern from teachers’ unions

This has prompted understandable concern from the  teachers’ unions, and on the 13th May, nine unions which represent teachers and education professionals signed a joint statement calling on the government to postpone reopening school on the 1st June, “We all want schools to re-open, but that should only happen when it is safe to do so. The government is showing a lack of understanding about the dangers of the spread of coronavirus within schools, and outwards from schools to parents, sibling and relatives, and to the wider community.” At the same time, others have suggested that the harms to many children due to neglect, abuse and missed educational opportunity arising from school closures outweigh the small increased risk to children, teachers and other adults of catching the virus.

What risk does Covid19 pose to children?

Weighing up the risks to children and teachers

So what do we know about the risk to children and to teachers? We know that children are about half as likely to catch the virus from an infected person as adults, and  if they do catch the virus they  are likely to have only mild symptoms.  The current evidence, although inconclusive, also suggests that they may be less likely to transmit the virus than adults.  However, teachers have rightly pointed out that there is a risk of transmission between the teachers themselves and between parents and teachers.

The first death from COVID-19 in England was recorded at the beginning of March 2020 and by the 8th May 2020 39,071 deaths involving COVID-19 had been reported in England and Wales. Just three of these deaths were among children aged under 15 years and  only a small proportion of the deaths (4416 individuals, 11.3%) were among working aged people.  Even among this age group risk is not uniform; it increases sharply with age from 2.6 in 100,000 for 25-44 years olds with a ten fold increase to 26 in  100,000 individuals for those aged 45-64.

Risks to teachers compared to other occupations

In addition, each underlying health condition increases the risk of dying from COVID-19, with those having at least 1 underlying health problem making up most cases.   The Office for National Statistics in the UK have published age standardised deaths by occupation for all deaths involving COVID-19 up to the 20th April 2020. Most of the people dying by this date would have been infected at the peak of the pandemic in the UK  prior to the lockdown period. They found that during this period there were 2494 deaths involving Covid-19 in the working age population. The mortality rate for Covid-19 during this period was 9.9 (95% confidence intervals 9.4-10.4) per 100,000 males and 5.2 (95%CI 4.9-5.6) per 100,000 females, with Covid-19 involved in around 1 in 4 and 1 in 5 of all deaths among males and females respectively.

Amongst teaching and education professionals (which includes school teachers, university lecturers and other education professionals) a total of 47 deaths (involving Covid-19) were recorded, equating to mortality rates of 6.7 (95%CI 4.1-10.3) per 100,000 among males and 3.3 (95%CI 2.0-4.9) per 100,000 among females, which was very similar to the rates of 5.6 (95%CI 4.6-6.6) per 100,000 among males and 4.2(95%CI 3.3-5.2) per 100,000 females for all professionals. The mortality figures for all education professionals includes 7 out of 437000 (or 1.6 per 100,000 teachers) primary and nursery school teachers and 17 out of 395000 (or 4.3 per 100,000 teachers) secondary school teachers.  A further 20 deaths occurred amongst childcare workers giving a mortality rate amongst this group of 3.4 (95%CI=2.0-5.5) per 100,000 females (males were highly underrepresented in this group), this is in contrast to rates of 6.5 (95%CI=4.9-9.1) for female sales assistants and 12.7(95%CI= 9.8-16.2) for female care home workers.

Covid-19 risk does not appear greater for teachers than other working age individuals

In summary, based on current evidence the risk to teachers and childcare workers within the UK from Covid-19 does not appear to be any greater than for any other group of working age individuals. However, perceptions of elevated risk may have occurred, prompting some to ask “Why are so many teachers dying?” due to the way this issue is portrayed in the media with headlines such as “Revealed: At least 26 teachers have died from Covid-19” currently on the https://www.tes.com website. This kind of reporting, along with the inability of the government to communicate the substantial differences in risk between different population groups – in particular according to age – has caused understandable anxiety among teachers. Whilst, some teachers may not be prepared to accept any level of risk of becoming infected with the virus whilst at work, others may be reassured that the risk to them is small, particularly given that we all accept some level of risk in our lives, a value that can never be zero.

Likely impact on transmission in the community is unclear

As the majority of parents or guardians of school aged children will be in the 25-45 age range, the risk to them  is also likely to be small. Questions remain however around the effect of school openings on transmission in the community and the associated risk. This will be affected by many factors including the existing infection levels in the community, the extent to which pupils, parents and teachers are mixing outside of school (and at the school gate) and mixing between individuals of different age groups. This is the primary consideration of the government Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies (SAGE) who are using modelling based on a series of assumptions to determine the effect of school openings on R0.

 

Sarah Lewis is a Senior Lecturer in Genetic Epidemiology in the department of Population Health Sciences, and is an affiliated member of the MRC Integrative Epidemiology Unit (IEU), University of Bristol

George Davey Smith is a Professor of Clinical Epidemiology, and director of the MRC IEU, University of Bristol

Marcus Munafo is a Professor of Biological Psychology, in the School of Psychology Science and leads the Causes, Consequences and Modification of Health Behaviours programme of research in the IEU, University of Bristol.

 

Do development indicators underlie global variation in the number of young people injecting drugs?

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Dr Lindsey Hines, Sir Henry Wellcome Postdoctoral Fellow in The Centre for Academic Mental Health & the Integrative Epidemiology Unit, University of Bristol

Dr Adam Trickey, Senior Research Associate in Population Health Sciences, University of Bristol

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Injecting drug use is a global issue: around the world an estimated 15.6 million people inject psychoactive drugs. People who inject drugs tend to begin doing so in adolescence, and countries that have larger numbers of adolescents who inject drugs may be at risk of emerging epidemics of blood borne viruses unless they take urgent action. We mapped the global differences in the proportion of adolescents who inject drugs, but found that we may be missing the vital data we need to protect the lives of vulnerable young people. If we want to prevent HIV, hepatitis C, and overdose from sweeping through a new generation of adolescents we urgently need many countries to scale up harm reduction interventions, and to collect accurate which can inform public health and policy.

People who inject drugs are engaging in a behaviour that can expose them to multiple health risks such as addiction, blood-borne viruses, and overdose, and are often stigmatised. New generations of young people are still starting to inject drugs, and young people who inject drugs are often part of other vulnerable groups.

Much of the research into the causes of injecting drug use focuses on individual factors, but we wanted to explore the effect of global development on youth injecting. A recent systematic review showed wide country-level variation in the number of young people who comprise the population of people who inject drugs. By considering variation in countries, we hoped to be able to inform prevention and intervention efforts.

It’s important to note that effective interventions can reduce the harms of injecting drug use. Harm reduction programmes provide clean needles and syringes to reduce transmission of blood borne viruses. Opiate substitution therapy seeks to tackle the physical dependence on opiates that maintains injecting behaviour and has been shown to improve health outcomes.

What we did

Through a global systematic review and meta-analysis we aimed to find data on injecting drug use in published studies, public health and policy documents from every country. We used these data to estimate the global percentage of people who inject drugs that are aged 15-25 years old, and also estimated this for each region and country. We wanted to understand what might underlie variation in the number of young people in populations of people who inject drugs, and so we used data from the World Bank to identify markers of a country’s wealth, equality, and development.

What we found

Our study estimated that, globally, around a quarter of people who inject drugs are adolescents and young adults. Applied to the global population, we can estimate approximately 3·9 million young people inject drugs. As a global average, people start injecting drugs at 23 years old.

Estimated percentage of young people amongst those who inject drugs in each country

We found huge variation in the percentage of young people in each country’s population of people who inject drugs. Regionally, Eastern Europe had the highest proportion of young people amongst their populations who inject drugs, and the Middle Eastern and North African region had the lowest. In both Russia and the Philippines, over 50% of the people who inject drugs were aged 25 or under, and the average age of the populations of people who inject drugs was amongst the lowest observed.

Average age of the population of people who inject drugs in each country

In relation to global development indicators, people who inject drugs were younger in countries with lower wealth (indicated through Gross Domestic Product per capita) had been injecting drugs for a shorter time period. In rapidly urbanising countries (indicated through urbanisation growth rate) people were likely to start injecting drugs at later ages than people in countries with a slower current rate of urbanisation. We didn’t find any relationships between the age of people who inject drugs and a country’s youth unemployment, economic equality, or level provision of opiate substitution therapy.

However, many countries were missing data on injecting age and behaviours, or injecting drug use in general, which could affect these results.

What this means

1. The epidemic of injecting drug use is being maintained over time.

A large percentage of people who inject drugs are adolescents, meaning that a new generation are being exposed to the risks of injecting – and we found that this risk was especially high in less wealthy countries.

2. We need to scale up access to harm reduction interventions

There are highly punitive policies towards drug use in the countries with the largest numbers of young people in their populations of people who inject drugs. Since 2016, thousands of people who use drugs in the Philippines have died at the hands of the police. In contrast, Portugal has adopted a public health approach to drug use and addiction for decades, taking the radical step of taking people caught with drugs or personal use into addiction services rather than prisons. The rate of drug-related deaths and HIV infections in Portugal has since plummeted, as has the overall rate of drug use amongst young people: our data show that Portugal has a high average age for its population of people who inject drugs. If we do not want HIV, hepatitis C, and drug overdoses to sweep through a new generation of adolescents, we urgently need to see more countries adopting the approach pioneered by Portugal, and scaling up access to harm reduction interventions to the levels recommended by the WHO.

3. We need to think about population health, and especially mental health, alongside urban development.

Global development appears to be linked to injecting drug use, and the results suggest that countries with higher urbanisation growth are seeing new, older populations beginning to inject drugs. It may be that changes in environment are providing opportunities for injecting drug use that people hadn’t previously had. It’s estimated that almost 70% of the global population will live in urban areas by 2050, with most of this growth driven by low and middle-income countries.

4. We need to collect accurate data

Despite the health risks of injecting drug use, and the urgent need to reduce risks for new generations, our study has revealed a paucity of data monitoring this behaviour. Most concerning, we know the least about youth injecting drug use in low- and middle-income countries: areas likely to have the highest numbers of young people in their populations of people who inject drugs. Due to the stigma and the illicit nature of injecting drug use it is often under-studied, but by failing to collect accurate data to inform public health and policy we are risking the lives of vulnerable young people.

Contact the researchers

Lindsey.hines@bristol.ac.uk

Lindsey is funded by the Wellcome Trust.

Teens who hit puberty later could face bone health issues later in life, studies suggest

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Ahmed Elhakeem, University of Bristol

Puberty is a time of dramatic development for both boys and girls. Not only are those hormones raging, but there’s all the bodily changes to contend with. (more…)

Depression: where we’re at and where we’re going

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To mark Mental Health Awareness Week, IEU PhD researcher Alex Kwong takes us on a tour of the research on depression in young people.

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What is depression and why should we care?

Depression is one of the biggest public health challenges we’re currently facing and is expected to be the highest global burden of disease by 2030. The world health organisation (WHO) estimates that around 300 million people worldwide currently experience depression and that at least one in five people will experience depression at some stage of their life. Treatment is not always successful with only around 40-60% of individuals responding positively to antidepressant medication, and other forms of treatment such as cognitive behavioural therapy (CBT) or other talking based therapies requiring long waiting times of up to two years. It’s no surprise to see that depression and other mental health treatments are considered to be in a ‘crisis’ as we continually look for new and effective ways to combat this disease.

Research suggests that depression may first begin to manifest early in adolescence and young adulthood. This may have serious downstream consequences as depression during adolescence is related to both concurrent and later self-harm and suicide, corresponding mental health problems (like anxiety, addiction and psychosis) and impaired social functioning (reduced cognitive functioning and reclusiveness), to name a few. It also appears that depression during adolescence and young adulthood may actually be getting worse. Now whether or not this is because young people are talking more about their mental health than before remains to be seen, but that has not stopped researchers identifying potential causes for depression in adolescence in the hope of developing new and effective treatments and interventions. The message seems to be clear: by stopping/reducing depression in young people, we can potentially improve the quality of life later on.

What is responsible for depression in young people?

The lived experience of depression between young people differs from one person to the next, meaning there is no ‘one-size-fits-all’ approach. But with the help of research, we have begun to identify things that individuals experiencing depression have in common, that could be useful for treating and even preventing depression in young people. What follows is a whistle stop tour of some of the findings of potential causes of depression in young people.

Bullying

It may seem obvious, but childhood and adolescent bullying is one of the strongest predictors of current and later depression. One recent study found that individuals who had been bullied during adolescence were almost 3 times more likely to be depressed at age of 18. Bullying is particular prevalent during school years but can also occur well into the workplace or later education, which can have lasting effects on an individual’s mental health. Stopping bullying from occurring will be difficult, but that does not mean we cannot support individuals who have been bullied in order to help prevent depression from occurring or getting more severe.

Parental Depression

A lot of research has focused on the role of parental mood and later depression in young people. The role of parenting cannot be understated as numerous studies have shown that children of depressed parents are more likely to go on to have depression themselves, see research by Pearson et al, Stein et al and Gutierrez-Galve et al. However, it’s not clear if this is passed on genetically from the parent to child, or if there is something in the “environment” that transmits depression from parent to child. Whilst we don’t know for sure, the answer looks like it could be a bit of both. Parents may pass on depression genetically to their children, but depressed parents may also create an environment that makes the child more liable to depression. It is even possible that the parent passes on their genetics and the child then creates an environment for themselves that makes them more liable to depression. This is a form of gene-environment correlation that I won’t discuss in detail, but research is beginning to tease this apart with regard to parent and childhood depression.

Genetics

Interest in the genetics of depression has been heightened in the last few years. We always knew from twin studies that depression was likely to be heritable (i.e., that depression can be passed on from generation to generation), but convincing some that depression could have a strong genetic basis was tough (for a really good debate on this involving Professor Marcus Munafò, you can listen to this episode of BBC Start the Week). Most recently it has been shown that common genetic variants associated with depression in adulthood seem to predict greater levels of depression in children and adolescents, as well as varying patterns of depressive mood across adolescence. Importantly, it’s clear that there is no ‘one gene’ for depression. Instead, there are multiple genes which can be referred to as ‘polygenicity’ or ‘polygenic risk scores’; “poly” meaning multiple and “risk” indicating that individuals carrying multiple risk genes are more liable or ‘at risk’ to depression. By using polygenic risk scores we can begin to identify individuals experiencing depression early by using knowledge of their genetic make-up. However, it is really important to state here that genetic liability to depression does not equal genetic determinism. Just because someone is more genetically liable to depression, does not mean they will get depressed. There are multiple other factors at play, and we do not know how genetic liability to depression impacts on other pathways (i.e., does having genetic liability make you more likely to seek out an environment that could leave you more depressed?); but many researchers are beginning to ask these questions.

Taken together, these findings highlight how diverse depression is and how many factors could underlie depression in adolescence. There are a ton of other factors that have been related to adolescent depression that I have not had time/space to talk about. That is not to say they are not important, because most likely some are. As research develops and we are able to utilise different methods, we will get a better picture of what underpins depression in adolescence and what can be done to prevent and treat it.

What can we do?

Well for one, we have to keep up the research. We don’t know nearly enough about the underlying mechanisms and pathways that truly underlie adolescent depression. Researchers are beginning to examine this further with novel and promising techniques, but we also have to streamline the time it takes for research to be put into practise. The prolific mental health blog “The Mental Elf” states that it takes 17 years for research to reach clinical practise. That’s a long time and means a lot of people could miss out on the treatment they deserve.

Secondly, we have to be more forthright in how we talk about depression. You may have heard the expression ‘it is ok to be not be ok”. Avoiding telling people to “man-up” when they’re feeling depressed, speaking out and campaigns will only drive this forward. We have to normalise the fact that depression is a disease and like any other disease, it is good to talk about it. Only by talking about depression can we really move forward to end the stigma that being depressed is some kind of weakness. In fact one of my favourite instances of this recently was well explained by the England international Danny Rose.

Where do we go from here?

We appear to be reaching a turning point where more and more people are discussing mental health issues. This may be celebrities, royals or just your average Jo from down the street. But what is important is that we recognise the problem. That depression is a global burden that may be getting worse and requires our utmost attention and action. We are beginning to understand the causes of depression and how we might tackle it through research and reducing the social stigma that surrounds depression. However, the question is whether or not we can take advantage of these changes to really make a difference. Can we build on the progress we have made to finally one day beat depression? Yes. I really believe we can.

Resources for if you’re feeling down

If you’re ever feeling low, then I cannot speak highly enough for these guys: https://www.samaritans.org/

There are a lot of charities who specialise in mental health and depression who provide some excellent resources and information:
https://www.mqmentalhealth.org/
https://www.mind.org.uk/

There are some awesome twitter feeds out there who I have always found to be really helpful and supportive of mental health issues. These people really get depression and are leading the charge in one way or another so do please give them a follow:

MENtalHealth
Paul McGregor
Gareth Griffith
Miguel Cordero Vega
Louise Arseneault
Dr Erin C Dunn

 

 

The MRC Integrative Epidemiology Unit at the University of Bristol (IEU) conducts some of the UK's most advanced population health science research. It uses genetics, population data and experimental interventions to look for the underlying causes of chronic disease.