External Publications Using GUI Data
Authors | Year | Title | Link | Journal/Book ↑ | Abstract |
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Maitre, B., Russell, H., Smyth, E. | 2014 | The dynamics of child poverty in Ireland: Evidence from the Growing Up in Ireland survey | Open | ESRI Research Series 121 | |
Laurence, J., Russell, H., Smyth, E. | 2023 | Housing adequacy and child outcomes in early and middle childhood | Open | ESRI Research Series 154 | |
While problems in the housing system in Ireland have been under the spotlight for the last decade, relatively little attention has been paid to the experience of children and to the consequences of housing issues for child development. International research has highlighted a range of effects of poor housing on children. Poor physical housing conditions has been associated with respiratory illnesses and childhood accidents. Overcrowding has been linked to poorer educational outcomes and deprived neighbourhood conditions to socio-emotional problems. Frequent residential mobility has also been found to lead to poorer cognitive and non-cognitive outcomes. However, there is a lack of evidence on how far these findings apply in Ireland where levels of home ownership are high and levels of neighbourhood segregation are lower. This study addresses this gap. Drawing on data from the ’08 Cohort of the Growing Up in Ireland study, we explore the housing conditions faced by children in early and middle childhood and the implications of these housing experiences for their cognitive, socio-emotional and health outcomes. We adopt a multi-dimensional approach to measuring housing conditions, incorporating housing tenure, suitability of accommodation, heating deprivation, neighbourhood disorder and housing mobility. | |||||
Timmons, S., Carroll, E., McGinnity, F. | 2023 | Experimental tests of public support for disability policy | Open | ESRI Research Series 159 | |
Despite the right of disabled people to full social and economic inclusion, many face multiple day-to-day and systemic challenges. These include but are not limited to additional expenses, access to housing, and everyday accessibility difficulties. Surveys show the general public hold positive attitudes towards policies that seek to enable disabled people to overcome these challenges, but standard survey methods are susceptible to response biases that may overestimate this support. This study aimed to test whether two such biases influence support for disability policy in Ireland: social desirability bias (i.e. the tendency for survey respondents to alter their responses in order to present themselves in a positive light); and inattention to the implications of policy support (e.g. that welfare policies require funding). Together the survey experiments covered a range of policy issues and types of disability, as identified in previous research and in consultation with the disability advisory group for the project. | |||||
Russell, H., Smyth, E. | 2024 | Caregiving among Young Adults in Ireland | Open | ESRI Research Series 168 | |
Care is fundamental to the fabric of social relationships and a significant proportion of the adult population is engaged in regular care for children and/or adults with illnesses or disabilities. Increasing attention internationally is being paid to the role of young carers (those under 18) and young adult carers (usually 18–25 years of age). However, much of the research conducted has been cross-sectional in nature and has focused on care for those with illnesses, rather than the full spectrum of care for others. This report draws on rich data on over 4,000 young people from Cohort ’98 of the Growing Up in Ireland (GUI) study to take a longitudinal perspective, documenting the profile of young adult carers at 17 and 20 years of age and exploring the implications of such caregiving for their wellbeing, relationships and educational pathways. In this study, we address the following research questions: 1. What is the profile of young adult carers, in terms of gender,social background, family size and structure, migrant status, urban/rural location, and own and parental illness/disability? To whom do they provide care and how much time do they allocate to caregiving? 2. What factors predict young people’s caring at ages 17 and 20? 3. How are care responsibilities associated with young people’s wellbeing, physical health and family relationships? 4. How are care responsibilities at age 17 associated with the post-school pathway pursued at age 20 (higher education, further education and labour market entry), controlling for other factors? Does a care role constrain postschool choices, either directly through ongoing involvement in care, or indirectly via a potential effect on academic performance? | |||||
Nolan, A., Smyth, E. | 2024 | Use of pornography by young adults in Ireland | Open | ESRI Research Series 177 | |
This report draws on the Growing Up in Ireland (GUI) study to look at pornography use among over 4,500 young adults at 20 years of age. Pornography use was captured as part of a module of questions on different types of internet use. The rich information provided by the GUI study allows us to explore the potential influence of a range of factors on pornography use and to examine the way use is related to key aspects of wellbeing and sexual behaviour among young adults. Pornography use is found to be highly gendered, with 64 per cent of young men and 13 per cent of young women reporting use. For this reason, analyses in the report look separately at the factors for young women and men. | |||||
McCoy, S., Carroll, E., Ye, K. | 2024 | ‘Embracing Diversity in all its Forms’: The Voluntary Secondary Sector in Irish Education | Open | ESRI Research Series 182 | |
The Irish education system is undergoing significant change as it navigates the challenges of the 2020s. Schools are at the frontline of Ireland’s efforts to integrate migrant families, build an inclusive society and tackle generational socioeconomic inequality. They are also, increasingly, key sites of contestation over deep social questions like the place of faith and secularism in public institutions and the best path to ensuring young people thrive, regardless of their gender or sexual orientation. While many of these challenges resonate across the second-level sector as all schools grapple with the difficulties and opportunities of educating young adults in today’s Ireland, the focus of this report is on the voluntary secondary school sector. The report presents rich evidence from a mixed-method research study across 21 voluntary secondary schools. The research was commissioned by the Joint Managerial Body for Voluntary Secondary Schools (JMB), with the research questions designed to examine the features and experiences of students, teachers and school leaders across the voluntary sector. However, the study allows for comparisons between experiences in voluntary secondary schools and other sectors. In particular, the survey of students undertaken in this study is compared to the nationally representative longitudinal study Growing Up in Ireland (GUI) and the International Student Assessment (PISA study) on 15 year olds in Ireland and across the European Union (EU). This approach allows for a deep exploration of the voluntary secondary sector, while also placing experiences in a national and international context. | |||||
Laurence, J., Smyth, E. | 2023 | Civic and political engagement among young adults in Ireland | Open | ESRI Research Series No.171 | |
International research has shown that civic engagement, that is, volunteering in local services, can benefit both young people and their communities, while political engagement can strengthen a society’s democratic culture. The Better Outcomes, Brighter Futures (2019) policy framework highlights the importance of young people feeling connected, respected and contributing to their world. To date, however, there has been an absence of systematic research on this aspect of young people’s transition to adulthood in Ireland. Further, although the government strategy Our Rural Future highlights a lack of access to facilities and transport for young people living in rural areas, little is known about how this might impact on their civic and political engagement. It is therefore crucial to have an evidence base to identify the drivers of civic engagement in order to better support young people’s involvement. This study aims to fill this gap by drawing on rich information on 20 year olds from Cohort ’98 of the Growing Up in Ireland (GUI) study. | |||||
Banks, J., Maitre, B., McCoy, S., Watson, D. | 2016 | Parental Educational Expectations of Children with Disabilities | Open | ESRI Research Series No.50 | |
Smyth, E., Darmody, M. | 2016 | Attitudes to Irish as a School Subject among 13-year-olds | Open | ESRI Working Paper | |
The purpose of this study is to investigate the influence of background and school factors on second-level students’ attitudes toward Irish as a school subject drawing on the Growing Up in Ireland study. The study focuses on the perceptions of the core subjects, English, Mathematics and Irish, and presents a profile of students who find the Irish language interesting or difficult. The study enables us to investigate the attitudes of teenagers towards the language in a systematic way, including personal, school and other characteristics that may have an impact on attitudes towards the Irish language. | |||||
McCoy, S., Byrne, D. | 2022 | Shadow Education uptake among final year students in Irish secondary schools: Wellbeing in a high stakes context | Open | ESRI Working Paper 724 | |
This paper assesses the role of shadow education (SE), i.e. organised learning activities outside formal schooling, in the lives of secondary school students of different social backgrounds and in different school settings, in a high-stakes context. It draws on multilevel analysis of longitudinal Growing Up in Ireland data, alongside narratives from in-depth case study research in 10 schools. Framed within a social reproduction approach, we show how access to SE as an educational resource is socially stratified, accessible to those with greater levels of family resources, and those attending schools with higher socio-economic student intakes. SE is viewed as an investment, particularly among students with average and above average levels of prior attainment, while high attaining students are less likely to use SE. Perhaps reflecting the normalisation of SE in the Irish context, students do not directly link engagement in such tuition to their socio-emotional wellbeing. | |||||
Darmody, M., Smyth, E. | 2017 | Profile of second-level students exempt from studying Irish | Open | ESRI Working Paper No.527 | |
Drawing on curriculum differentiation theory, this paper discusses exemptions from learning Irish granted to Irish post-primary students. In order to explore the profile of students granted such exemptions, the study utilises data from a national longitudinal study, Growing Up in Ireland. Additional information is provided by administrative data collected by the Department of Education and Skills to show trends in the number of exemptions granted over time. The findings show that factors impacting on being exempt include gender, social class, having a special educational need at primary school and being born outside Ireland. Keyword(s): post-primary schools, curriculum differentiation, exemptions from Irish, Ireland | |||||
Healy, S., Patterson, F., Williams, E., Lozano, A.J., Hanlon, A., Obrusnikova, I. | 2020 | Rethinking daily movement behaviours of children with autism spectrum disorder: meeting the 24-hour movement guidelines | Open | European Journal of Adapted Physical Activity | |
In an effort to promote optimal health in all children, 24-hour movement guidelines that provide specific recommendations for physical activity, screen-time, and sleep have been developed (≥ 1 hour of physical activity, ≤ 2 hours of screen-time, 9-11 hours of sleep). Children who meet the recommendations for these health behaviours are less likely to be obese than those who do not meet them. This study compared the degree to which children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) and typically developing (TD) children met the newly developed 24-hour movement guidelines. A propensity-score matched sample of 72 children (36 children with ASD, 36 TD children) from the “Growing Up in Ireland” study was included in the analysis. Based on parents’ completion of time-use diaries, fewer children with ASD, compared to TD children, met the recommendations for screentime (58.3% vs. 80.6%, p=0.07, V=0.24) and physical activity (41.7% vs. 69.4%, p=0.03, V=0.28). Children with ASD were most likely to meet two guidelines (44.4%), whereas TD children most commonly met all three guidelines (55.6%). The findings highlight the breadth of health behaviours that require intervention among children with ASD. The current study suggests that examining the movement behaviours that constitute a 24-hour period for children with ASD may be useful to inform interventions to reduce their risk for sub-optimal health. Keywords: Physical activity; Screen-time; Sleep; Autistic; exercise; sedentary behaviour; health; overweight; obesity | |||||
Crowe, M., O'Sullivan, M., Cassetti, O., O'Sullivan, A. | 2020 | Estimation and consumption pattern for free sugar intake in 3-year-old Irish preschool children | Open | European Journal of Nutrition | |
Purposes Methods Results Conclusions | |||||
Crowe, M., O’Sullivan, M., Cassetti, O., O’Sullivan, A. | 2020 | Estimation and consumption pattern of free sugar intake in 3-year-old Irish preschool children | Open | European Journal of Nutrition volume | |
Purposes Methods Results Conclusions | |||||
Neville, R.D., Nelson, M.A., Madigan, S., Browne, D.T., Lakes, K.D. | 2021 | Does physical activity moderate the association between screen time and psychosocial development in early childhood? Analysis of a longitudinal infant cohort study in Ireland | Open | European Journal of Pediatrics | |
The objective of this study was to explore the extent to which the association between screen time and psychosocial development in preschool children differed between the sexes and according to their frequency of engagement in physical activity. Data are based on a prospective cohort of Irish children, collected between 2010 and 2013 when children were ages 3 (n=9786) and 5 years (n=9001). Children’s screen time (h/day), psychosocial development (Strengths and Difficulties Questionnaire), and physical activity (bouts/week) were assessed via caregiver report. The magnitude of the association between screen time and changes in behavioural difficulties differed significantly between the sexes. For boys, the association between increased screen time and the onset of behavioural problems coincided directly with a reduction in their frequency of engagement in physical activity. The association between screen time and changes in behavioural difficulties was not moderated by girls’ engagement in physical activity, however; and there was no difference in the association between screen time and prosocial behaviours at different frequencies of engagement in physical activity for either boys or girls. Conclusions | |||||
Mc Evoy, D., Brannigan, R.E., Walsh, C., Arensman, E., Clarke, M. | 2023 | Identifying high-risk subgroups for self-harm in young people | Open | European Journal of Public Health | |
Self-harm in adolescents and young adults (AYAs) is the result of a complex interaction of biological, psychiatric, psychological, social, and cultural risk factors. A lot of research has already been conducted to identify the risk factors for self-harm in AYAs. On the other hand, there has been less research conducted on the simultaneous effects of, and the interactions between, multiple risk factors for self-harm in heterogeneous AYA individuals. In this study, we conducted a latent class analysis (LCA) of three waves from the Growing Up in Ireland (GUI) longitudinal cohort study at ages 13, 17 and 20 to identify homogenous subgroups of AYA individuals who exhibit similar risk markers for self-harm at these three time points. Then, we evaluated the risk that these subgroups ever self-harmed by age 17, self-harmed at age 20, or were persistently self-harming across both time points. The most at-risk group appeared to be the individuals aged 17 who had been diagnosed with depression/anxiety. Compared to the low-risk-marker group, the ‘diagnosed with depression/anxiety’ group had a 30-fold risk of self-harm at age 17, and 32-fold risk of persistently self-harming by age 20. The ‘undiagnosed but high depression’ group at this time point was also at significant risk of self-harm. This research enables us to understand which risk markers tend to co-occur together and will help to identify high-risk groups for self-harm both clinically and in the community. An investigation of risk markers like this can potentially be used in the design of public health interventions to reduce the burden of self-harm, and indeed suicide, in young people. Key messages • These identifiable sub-groups can inform intervention policies and strategies for prevention programmes both in clinical and non-clinical settings like schools. | |||||
Knowles, C., Paradis, K.F., Breslin, G., Shannon, S., Carlin, A. | 2023 | Physical activity in childhood and adolescence and future depressive symptoms: an 11-year prospective cohort study | Open | European Journal of Public Health | |
Background Methods Results Conclusions | |||||
Dooley, N., Healy, C., Cotter, D. | 2023 | Trajectories of psychopathology among young people related to outcomes in young adulthood | Open | European Journal of Public Health | |
What does young adulthood look like for individuals who had mental health problems across childhood? Using the Growing Up in Ireland cohort (born in 1998 and studied from ages 9 to 20) we explored the association between mental health problems between ages 9 and 13, and subsequent poor outcomes in the same individuals at ages 17-20. We consider educational/economic outcomes, health service use, poor mental and physical health, social isolation, substance abuse, and subjective wellbeing in young adults. In a previous study that used latent class modelling, we identified four groups which captured mental health in a general population sample of children. Between ages 9 and 13, children could be grouped into: a low symptoms group (∼65%), an ‘externalising’ group with ADHD or conduct symptoms (∼20%), an ‘internalising’ group with depressive, anxiety or peer issues (∼10%), or a group showing many combined mental health symptoms (∼2%). All mental health problem groups had elevated odds across all 7 adverse outcomes in young adulthood. The 5 areas of young adult functioning most related to childhood mental health were: education/economics, subjective wellbeing, mental health, social isolation and substance abuse. Poor educational/economic outcomes were as likely as poor mental health (OR ∼ 2) in individuals with childhood psychopathology. The 3 childhood problem groups showed different risk profiles in young adulthood. For instance, the childhood internalising group had lower odds of substance abuse than all other groups, but had the highest odds of poor physical health by adulthood. Findings point to the need for a wider range of preventative supports for children and adolescents with a history of mental health problems, beyond just mental health support. These include interventions to improve physical health, treat substance abuse, reduce social isolation, and improve adverse educational and economic outcomes. | |||||
McGuire, F., Reynolds, C., Codd, M. | 2023 | Quarantweens - the impact of COVID-19 restrictions on preteen health and wellbeing in Ireland | Open | European Journal of Public Health | |
Background Methods Results Conclusions Key messages
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Bowe, A., Healy, C., Cannon, M., Codd, M.B. | 2021 | Physical activity and emotional-behavioural difficulties in young people: a longitudinal population-based cohort study | Open | European Journal of Public Health | |
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