The research I work on primarily focuses on inequalities in child health. Inequalities in these early years of life are especially concerning because health at this age can determine the child’s future life chances, including their development and education.
The first project I worked on at Glasgow was qatar rcs data looking at how inequalities in child mental health changed during the COVID-19 pandemic. There has been a concerning increase in child referrals to mental health services in recent years, which was exacerbated by the pandemic. We modelled the trend in child mental health inequalities among 5- and 8-year-olds prior to the pandemic, and then looked at how they changed in the pandemic. We were able to do this using data from the UK Household Longitudinal Study (Understanding Society).
Contrary to expectations, we found that traditionally more advantaged children generally experienced more rapid declines in mental health than their more disadvantaged peers. We have called this a ‘levelling down’ effect because inequalities narrowed, however the average level of child mental health declined.