How do 'effects' differ across time? Understanding health inequalities by triangulating across multiple data sources and empirical strategies

教育或收入等社会经济环境被认为对我们的健康有重要影响。一般来说，一个人的社会经济地位越高，他的健康状况就越好。与广泛持有的神话相反，这些差异不是不可避免或不可改变的。经济和卫生政策会随着时间的推移而变化，最终可能会恶化（扩大）或改善（缩小）这些差异。科学家、政府部门和志愿组织都同意应该减少健康方面的不平等。为此，我们需要以证据为基础，了解这些不平等是如何随着时间的推移而变化的，以帮助我们制定有效的政策。本项目旨在产生这一证据。首先，它将汇集多个数据集，调查这些健康不平等在英国是如何随时间变化的。过去，研究人员倾向于单独使用这些研究——将它们放在一起分析是了解不平等如何随时间变化的一种非常有效的方法。然后，它将试图理解这些相关性是否反映了因果关系。虽然社会环境可能与健康相关，但这种相关性还有其他解释。随着社会的变化，这种因果关系也可能随着时间的推移而不同；随着年龄的增长。它将通过使用多个数据源来做到这一点，这些数据源将随时间跟踪数千个人。它将利用环境信息和遗传信息来试图解决这个问题。此外，该项目将调查其他两个因素的因果作用如何随着时间的推移而变化。首先是认知能力——这是指个人如何思考和处理信息。平均而言，那些认知能力较强的人似乎在一系列健康指标上更健康，比如心血管疾病风险较低、体重较轻。由于社会日益复杂的性质（以及与技术发展有关的潜在未来变化），了解这一因素对健康的重要性是否随着时间的推移而改变是很重要的。第二个因素是不健康的遗传倾向。近几十年来，我们对遗传学的理解有了很大的提高。我们都有对常见健康指标的遗传倾向，比如体重和血压，但有些人比其他人有更高的遗传倾向。这些差异并不意味着他们一定会有更差的健康措施——遗传风险被认为是“概率性的”，而不是“决定性的”。这些基因的表达也取决于环境。因此，该项目将试图了解遗传因素与体重、血压和心理健康之间的联系是否会随着时间的推移而改变。总而言之，该项目旨在促进科学理解并提供证据，这些证据最终可用于为英国与公共卫生不平等有关的国家政策提供信息。

Socioeconomic circumstances such as our education or income are thought to have important effects on our health. On average, the more socioeconomically advantaged someone is, the better their health. Contrary to widely-held myth, these differences are not inevitable or unchangeable. Economic and health policies change across time, and are ultimately expected to either worsen (widen) or improve (narrow) these differences. Scientists, government departments, and voluntary organisations all agree that inequalities in health should be reduced. In order to do so, we need to have an evidence-based understanding of how these inequalities have changed across time to help us develop effective policies. This project seeks to generate this evidence. First, it will bring together multiple datasets to investigate how these health inequalities have changed across time in the UK. In the past, researchers have tended to use these studies separately - analysing them together is a very powerful way of understanding how inequalities have changed across time. It will then seek to understand whether these correlations reflect causal relationships. While it is possible that social circumstances are correlated with health, there are other explanations for such correlations. It is also possible that such causal effects differ across time, as society changes; and across age, as people get older. It will do this by using multiple data sources which follow many thousands of individuals across time. It will use information on the environment along with genetic information to attempt to address this. In addition, this project will investigate how the causal role of two other factors may have changed across time. The first is cognitive capability - this refers to how individuals think and process information. On average, those with higher cognitive capability seem to have better health across a range of health measures such as lower cardiovascular disease risk and lower body weight. Due to the increasingly complex nature of society (and potential future changes related to technological development), it is important to understand if the importance of this factor for health has changed across time. The second factor is genetic propensity to ill health. In recent decades our understanding of genetics has greatly improved. We all contain genetic propensity to common health measures, such as body weight and blood pressure, but some individuals have higher genetic propensity than others. These differences do not mean that they will definitively have worse health measures - genetic risk is considered 'probabilistic' rather than 'deterministic'. The expression of these genes also depends on the environment. As such, this project will seek to understand if the links between genetic factors and body weight, blood pressure and mental health have changed across time. Taken together, this project seeks to advance scientific understanding and provide evidence which can ultimately be used to inform national policies related to public health inequalities in the UK.