A systematic review of the relationships between social capital and socioeconomic inequalities in health: a contribution to understanding the psychosocial pathway of health inequalities

YesRecent research on health inequalities moves beyond illustrating the importance of psychosocial factors for health to a more in-depth study of the specific psychosocial pathways involved. Social capital is a concept that captures both a buffer function of the social environment on health, as well as potential negative effects arising from social inequality and exclusion. This systematic review assesses the current evidence, and identifies gaps in knowledge, on the associations and interactions between social capital and socioeconomic inequalities in health. Through this systematic review we identified studies on the interactions between social capital and socioeconomic inequalities in health published before July 2012. The literature search resulted in 618 studies after removal of duplicates, of which 60 studies were eligible for analysis. Self-reported measures of health were most frequently used, together with different bonding, bridging and linking components of social capital. A large majority, 56 studies, confirmed a correlation between social capital and socioeconomic inequalities in health. Twelve studies reported that social capital might buffer negative health effects of low socioeconomic status and five studies concluded that social capital has a stronger positive effect on health for people with a lower socioeconomic status. There is evidence for both a buffer effect and a dependency effect of social capital on socioeconomic inequalities in health, although the studies that assess these interactions are limited in number. More evidence is needed, as identified hypotheses have implications for community action and for action on the structural causes of social inequalities

Mental health among healthcare workers and other vulnerable groups during the COVID-19 pandemic and other coronavirus outbreaks: A rapid systematic review.

INTRODUCTION: Although most countries and healthcare systems worldwide have been affected by the COVID-19 pandemic, some groups of the population may be more vulnerable to detrimental effects of the pandemic on mental health than others. The aim of this systematic review was to synthesise evidence currently available from systematic reviews on the impact of COVID-19 and other coronavirus outbreaks on mental health for groups of the population thought to be at increased risk of detrimental mental health impacts. MATERIALS AND METHODS: We conducted a systematic review of reviews on adults and children residing in a country affected by a coronavirus outbreak and belonging to a group considered to be at risk of experiencing mental health inequalities. Data were collected on symptoms or diagnoses of any mental health condition, quality of life, suicide or attempted suicide. The protocol for this systematic review was registered in the online PROSPERO database prior to commencing the review (https://www.crd.york.ac.uk/prospero/display_record.php?RecordID=194264). RESULTS: We included 25 systematic reviews. Most reviews included primary studies of hospital workers from multiple countries. Reviews reported variable estimates for the burden of symptoms of mental health problems among acute healthcare workers, COVID-19 patients with physical comorbidities, and children and adolescents. No evaluations of interventions were identified. Risk- and protective factors, mostly for healthcare workers, showed the importance of personal factors, the work environment, and social networks for mental health. CONCLUSIONS: This review of reviews based on primary studies conducted in the early months of the COVID-19 pandemic shows a lack of evidence on mental health interventions and mental health impacts on vulnerable groups in the population

Development and validation of a search filter to identify equity-focused studies: reducing the number needed to screen

Search strategies and validation set papers. Contains validated search strategies, the number of records retrieved, and the MEDLINE validation set of papers. (PDF 722 kb

Born in Bradford's Better Start: an experimental birth cohort study to evaluate the impact of early life interventions.

BACKGROUND: Early interventions are recognised as key to improving life chances for children and reducing inequalities in health and well-being, however there is a paucity of high quality research into the effectiveness of interventions to address childhood health and development outcomes. Planning and implementing standalone RCTs for multiple, individual interventions would be slow, cumbersome and expensive. This paper describes the protocol for an innovative experimental birth cohort: Born in Bradford's Better Start (BiBBS) that will simultaneously evaluate the impact of multiple early life interventions using efficient study designs. Better Start Bradford (BSB) has been allocated £49 million from the Big Lottery Fund to implement 22 interventions to improve outcomes for children aged 0-3 in three key areas: social and emotional development; communication and language development; and nutrition and obesity. The interventions will be implemented in three deprived and ethnically diverse inner city areas of Bradford. METHOD: The BiBBS study aims to recruit 5000 babies, their mothers and their mothers' partners over 5 years from January 2016-December 2020. Demographic and socioeconomic information, physical and mental health, lifestyle factors and biological samples will be collected during pregnancy. Parents and children will be linked to their routine health and local authority (including education) data throughout the children's lives. Their participation in BSB interventions will also be tracked. BiBBS will test interventions using the Trials within Cohorts (TwiCs) approach and other quasi-experimental designs where TwiCs are neither feasible nor ethical, to evaluate these early life interventions. The effects of single interventions, and the cumulative effects of stacked (multiple) interventions on health and social outcomes during the critical early years will be measured. DISCUSSION: The focus of the BiBBS cohort is on intervention impact rather than observation. As far as we are aware BiBBS is the world's first such experimental birth cohort study. While some risk factors for adverse health and social outcomes are increasingly well described, the solutions to tackling them remain elusive. The novel design of BiBBS can contribute much needed evidence to inform policy makers and practitioners about effective approaches to improve health and well-being for future generations

Integrating research and system-wide practice in public health: lessons learnt from Better Start Bradford.

Many interventions that are delivered within public health services have little evidence of effect. Evaluating interventions that are being delivered as a part of usual practice offers opportunities to improve the evidence base of public health. However, such evaluation is challenging and requires the integration of research into system-wide practice. The Born in Bradford's Better Start experimental birth cohort offers an opportunity to efficiently evaluate multiple complex community interventions to improve the health, wellbeing and development of children aged 0-3 years. Based on the learning from this programme, this paper offers a pragmatic and practical guide to researchers, public health commissioners and service providers to enable them to integrate research into their everyday practice, thus enabling relevant and robust evaluations within a complex and changing system.Using the principles of co-production the key challenges of integrating research and practice were identified, and appropriate strategies to overcome these, developed across five key stages: 1) Community and stakeholder engagement; 2) Intervention design; 3) Optimising routinely collected data; 4) Monitoring implementation; and 5) Evaluation. As a result of our learning we have developed comprehensive toolkits ( https://borninbradford.nhs.uk/what-we-do/pregnancy-early-years/toolkit/ ) including: an operational guide through the service design process; an implementation and monitoring guide; and an evaluation framework. The evaluation framework incorporates implementation evaluations to enable understanding of intervention performance in practice, and quasi experimental approaches to infer causal effects in a timely manner. We also offer strategies to harness routinely collected data to enhance the efficiency and affordability of evaluations that are directly relevant to policy and practice.These strategies and tools will help researchers, commissioners and service providers to work together to evaluate interventions delivered in real-life settings. More importantly, however, we hope that they will support the development of a connected system that empowers practitioners and commissioners to embed innovation and improvement into their own practice, thus enabling them to learn, evaluate and improve their own services

Variations in the prevalence of childhood asthma and wheeze in MeDALL cohorts in Europe

While there is evidence for variations in prevalence rates of childhood wheeze and asthma between countries, longitudinal, individual-level data are needed to understand these differences. The aim of this study was to examine variations in prevalence rates of childhood asthma, wheeze and wheeze with asthma in Europe. We analysed datasets from 10 MeDALL (Mechanisms of the Development of ALLergy) cohorts in eight countries, representing 26 663 children, to calculate prevalence rates of wheeze and asthma by child age and wheeze with asthma at age 4 years. Harmonised variables included outcomes parent-reported wheeze and parent-reported doctor-diagnosed asthma, and covariates maternal education, parental smoking, pets, parental asthma, doctor-diagnosed allergic rhinitis, doctor-diagnosed eczema and wheeze severity. At age 4 years, asthma prevalence varied from 1.72% in Germany to 13.48% in England and the prevalence of wheeze varied from 9.82% in Greece to 55.37% in Spain. Adjusted estimates of the proportion of 4-year-old children with wheeze diagnosed with asthma remained highest in England (38.14%, 95% CI 31.38–44.90%) and lowest in Spain (15.94%, 95% CI 6.16–25.71%). The large differences in prevalence rates of asthma, wheeze and wheeze with asthma at age 4 years between European cohorts may indicate that childhood asthma is more readily diagnosed in some countries while going unrecognised elsewhere.The MeDALL collaboration is funded by European Union Seventh Framework Programme grant agreement number 261357

Mental health promotion and protection relating to key life events and transitions in adulthood: a rapid systematic review of systematic reviews.

BackgroundDuring the decades representing working-age adulthood, most people will experience one or several significant life events or transitions. These may present a challenge to mental health.AimThe primary aim of this rapid systematic review of systematic reviews was to summarise available evidence on the effectiveness of interventions to promote and protect mental health relating to four key life events and transitions: pregnancy and early parenthood, bereavement, unemployment, and housing problems. This review was conducted to inform UK national policy on mental health support.MethodsWe searched key databases for systematic reviews of interventions for working-age adults (19 to 64 years old) who had experienced or were at risk of experiencing one of four key life events. Titles and abstracts were screened by two reviewers in duplicate, as were full-text manuscripts of relevant records. We assessed the quality of included reviews and extracted data on the characteristics of each literature review. We prioritised high quality, recent systematic reviews for more detailed data extraction and synthesis.ResultsThe search and screening of 3997 titles/abstracts and 239 full-text papers resulted in 134 relevant studies, 68 of which were included in a narrative synthesis. Evidence was strongest and of the highest quality for interventions to support women during pregnancy and after childbirth. For example, we found benefits of physical activity and psychological therapy for outcomes relating to mental health after birth. There was high quality evidence of positive effects of online bereavement interventions and psychological interventions on symptoms of grief, post-traumatic stress, and depression. Evidence was inconclusive and of lower quality for a range of other bereavement interventions, unemployment support interventions, and housing interventions.ConclusionsWhilst evidence based mental health prevention and promotion is available during pregnancy and early parenthood and for bereavement, it is unclear how best to support adults experiencing job loss, unemployment, and housing problems

Cognitive behavioural therapy and third wave approaches for anxiety and related disorders in older people

Objectives: This is a protocol for a Cochrane Review (intervention). The objectives are as follows:. To assess the effects of CBT (CT, BT, CBT and third-wave CBT interventions) on severity of anxiety symptoms compared with minimal management for anxiety and related disorders in older adults, aged 55 years or over. To assess the effects of CBT (CT, BT, CBT and third-wave CBT interventions) on severity of anxiety symptoms compared with other psychological therapies for anxiety and related disorders in older adults, aged 55 years or over

Mental health promotion and protection relating to key life events and transitions in adulthood: a rapid systematic review of systematic reviews

During the decades representing working-age adulthood, most people will experience one or several significant life events or transitions. These may present a challenge to mental health. The primary aim of this rapid systematic review of systematic reviews was to summarise available evidence on the effectiveness of interventions to promote and protect mental health relating to four key life events and transitions: pregnancy and early parenthood, bereavement, unemployment, and housing problems. This review was conducted to inform UK national policy on mental health support. We searched key databases for systematic reviews of interventions for working-age adults (19 to 64 years old) who had experienced or were at risk of experiencing one of four key life events. Titles and abstracts were screened by two reviewers in duplicate, as were full-text manuscripts of relevant records. We assessed the quality of included reviews and extracted data on the characteristics of each literature review. We prioritised high quality, recent systematic reviews for more detailed data extraction and synthesis. The search and screening of 3997 titles/abstracts and 239 full-text papers resulted in 134 relevant studies, 68 of which were included in a narrative synthesis. Evidence was strongest and of the highest quality for interventions to support women during pregnancy and after childbirth. For example, we found benefits of physical activity and psychological therapy for outcomes relating to mental health after birth. There was high quality evidence of positive effects of online bereavement interventions and psychological interventions on symptoms of grief, post-traumatic stress, and depression. Evidence was inconclusive and of lower quality for a range of other bereavement interventions, unemployment support interventions, and housing interventions. Whilst evidence based mental health prevention and promotion is available during pregnancy and early parenthood and for bereavement, it is unclear how best to support adults experiencing job loss, unemployment, and housing problems