Studies like Children of the 90s have been invaluable in helping us understand what influences mental health throughout our life. The questions asked about mood and feelings over the decades make it one of the best longitudinal studies in the world for studying mental health.
Yet despite such detailed data, we still don’t fully understand what causes poor mental health. This study aims to explore in great detail the day-to-day experience of living with poor mental health, to find out what factors might impact it in our daily lives. Understanding this could potentially lead to better treatments for those who are struggling.
Our aim is to capture data in real-time using smartphones, which has never been done before in a longitudinal study like this. Around 200 Children of the 90s G1 participants (generation 1 – our original CO90s babies) will be invited to take part. For six weeks we will ask them to complete a few short surveys each day to find out about what they’re doing, plus a slightly longer questionnaire at 2 week intervals.
By gathering this information repeatedly over the course of several weeks, we can learn how mental health plays its part in people’s daily lives. We will then link this data to what they tell us about their sleep patterns, substance use, physical activity and relationships. We’ll also give a subset of participants a smartwatch that can capture detailed and accurate data about their sleep, physical activity and heart rate.
With this important new data, we believe researchers can better understand what might influence long and short-term changes in mental health.
Dr Alex Kwong, study lead, said: “I’d really like to thank the Children of the 90s participants for everything they’ve already done for science. Each and every one of those long annual questionnaires really matters – and is impacting mental health research into conditions like anxiety and depression.
“Our new study will take this even further – lifting the lid on what it’s like to experience poor mental health, day to day. We believe it has the potential to improve lives for generations to come.”