Environmental Risk (E-Risk)

 

(Funded by Medical Research Council)

Professors Moffitt and Caspi and 13 Centre collaborators were awarded an MRC programme grant in 1998 to investigate how specific environmental risk factors contribute to the early emergence of disruptive behaviour at ages 5 and 7 using families from the TEDS sample. The E-Risk sample (N = 1,116 families of twins) is a national probability sample, with an oversample of families whose children are at high-risk for disruptive behaviour disorders.

The study was funded by MRC for a further five years in 2004, in a grant to Terrie Moffitt, Avshalom Caspi, and Louise Arseneault. We carried out follow-up assessements at ages 10 and 12. The age-12 follow up was completed in 2008 with 96% of study families taking part in data collection home visits.

The ESRC has also funded a neighbourhood survey for this project in 2006 and 2008. Work on community-level environmental effects in the E-risk cohort is being taken forward under the leadership of Dr. Candice Odgers, funded by the William T. Grant Foundation.

We have added a substudy of immune-system biomarkers in the E-risk twins, which is under the leadership of Dr. Louise Arseneault and Dr. Andrea Danese.

The study aims to build knowledge about children’s disruptive behaviour (oppositional, conduct, hyperactive & inattentive behaviour problems). It addresses (1) which specific environmental risk factors contribute to the early emergence of disruptive behaviour, (2) whether environmental risk factors interact with genetic risk to influence disruptive behaviour, (3) whether and how child-specific parenting experiences explain differences in behavioural outcomes between children in the same family, (4) how the effects of risk are mediated through children’s neuropsychological executive functions, social-information processing, and verbal skills.

Teds-Environment web page - www.teds-environment.com

 

Staff List

Antony Ambler (Data Manager) antony.ambler@iop.kcl.ac.uk

Lisa Cheung (Administrative Secretary) lisa.cheung@iop.kcl.ac.uk