Childhood disability, limiting long-term illness and socio-economic disadvantage

Nick Spencer, Clare Blackburn and Janet Read, University of Warwick

(Project no. 30116)

The LS element forms part of a wider project in which secondary analysis of 1991 and 2001 SARs and the ONS LS will be used to explore trends, predictors and causal direction in the association of social disadvantage, ethnicity, lone parenthood, parental disability/limiting long term illness (LLTI) and disability/LLTI in UK children.

Secondary analysis of the ONS LS data will be used to study the causal direction of social disadvantage associated with childhood LLTI and the temporal relationship of childhood and parental LLTI. SARs data will be analysed in addition to LS data to explore trends and predictors in the association of social disadvantage and disability/LLTI illness in UK children.

Research questions relevant to LS:

1. Does parental LLTI precede childhood LLTI or is there evidence that experience of parenting a child with LLTI precipitates parental LLTI? 

2. Does social disadvantage predispose to childhood LLTI? If so, how much of the social disadvantage experienced by households with children with LLTI precedes the onset of LLTI in the child and how much is a consequence of having a child with LLTI?