Early adulthood education/employment transitions and the development of inequalities in diet quality and cardiovascular health

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Cardiovascular disease is responsible for 26% of all deaths in the UK and estimated to cost the UK economy £19 billion each year. Poor diet is one of the key contributors to cardiovascular disease. In order to help people develop healthy diets and prevent cardiovascular disease we need to know more about how patterns of diet develop over time, how they are influenced by lifestyle changes, and how these influences differ between different population groups. Early adulthood (ages 16-24) is a time when many lifestyle changes are seen, as individuals move from school and family environments, to higher education and/or employment and begin to live independently. This is an important time to support individuals to develop healthy habits which will then persist into adulthood. In this research I will address the question of how the changes that take place in early adulthood contribute to the differences seen in diet and cardiovascular health between different groups of the population in adulthood. In my research I will study:1. How are patterns of changes in education and employment participation over early adulthood related to adult diet and cardiovascular health?2. How are the education/employment transitions of early adulthood associated with changes in diet and eating behaviours?3. What are factors that influence changes in diet and eating behaviours across early adulthood education/employment transitions?I will make use of the best existing datasets available to study these questions in the UK (The 1970 British Cohort Study and the Avon Longitudinal Study of Parents and Children) and internationally (Western Australian Pregnancy Cohort (Raine) Study and the ProjectEAT cohort (US)), and will also collect my own data to examine changes in diet as individuals leave school in the UK. The study builds on my previous work in this area, including literature review, analysis of changes in diet across life transitions in a Norwegian dataset, and cross-sectional analysis of diet quality and cardiovascular health in the UK National Diet and Nutrition Survey. The research will be carried out at the Centre for Diet and Activity Research (CEDAR), within the MRC Epidemiology Unit in Cambridge, which conducts research specifically focusing on the factors that influence dietary and physical activity related behaviours. I will collaborate with experts working in my host institute as well as external collaborators with expertise in cardiovascular health, nutrition, eating behaviours and specialist knowledge of data collection and analysis methods. This research will lead to a better understanding of the factors that are linked to changes in diet and eating behaviours during early adulthood, and how these changes differ between different groups of the population. The findings from this research will help academics and policymakers to understand the most effective way to help people to improve their diet over this age range and reduce cardiovascular disease.