“Never before has data-led research been so important to improve patient outcomes and increase knowledge in order to manage the impact of this pandemic” - Professor Nic Timpson.
Welcome to our latest Children of the 90s e-news and a special welcome back to the study for the many of you who’ve re-connected with us after a break from questionnaires or clinics. This has been an extraordinary year for all of us and as a study. Every aspect of how we work to collect your data has been affected, and yet demand for the study’s detailed health and lifestyle data continues to be stronger than ever, demonstrating the importance of Children of the 90s to the scientific community.
New virtual clinics
Our routine Children of the Children of the 90s (COCO90s) face-to-face sessions were paused due to COVID-19. But the good news is we will soon launch our COCO90s sessions as virtual visits, using a postal kit and Microsoft Teams. Our Clinic team has really missed having regular contact with you and your children and can’t wait to get started with these sessions – so please watch this space for more info!
If you are pregnant or have recently had a baby, please contact us by text (send your name and date of birth to 07772 102649) or email coco90s@childrenofthe90s.ac.uk to let us know.
COVID-19 questionnaires - a record response!
During these challenging times, it’s been inspiring to see how many of you have participated in our online questionnaires, playing a vital role in understanding COVID-19. We received over 13,000 COVID-19 questionnaires - a phenomenal response – in which you shared your COVID-19 symptoms, lifestyle and how lockdown affected your health, finances, family and wellbeing. This data has informed the Government’s SAGE committee and Public Health England over the past months. Find out more about our COVID-19 research, reports and key findings here.
Social media content presents an exciting new area for health research and is another form of what we call ‘data linkage’, giving fascinating insights into day-to-day life and enabling research that wasn’t possible before. As with all our research, participation is voluntary, so Twitter data can only be used if you choose to consent to this.
COVID-19 antibody testing
We have now started a new study that involves COVID-19 antibody testing for anyone who responded to the COVID-19 questionnaires. Everyone who is eligible has now received an email invitation and will receive a testing kit in the post in October. We are sorry but we are unable to expand the study to include anyone who did not participate in the COVID-19 questionnaires earlier this year.
In addition, we are part of a new and important study called the UK Coronavirus Immunology Consortium, one of the first studies to try and understand our immune response to COVID-19 after infection and recovery. We will be in touch about this in October.
Face-to-face clinics
We have started to invite a small number of participants to face-to-face clinics for measures relating to research into things like pain and eczema, now that we can guarantee this is safe to do. Looking ahead, our full @30 Clinic will launch in early 2021, in what will be a significant year for many of our study children and the study as a whole!
In these extraordinary times, Children of the 90s is uniquely able to answer many important research questions about COVID-19 as well as health and wellbeing in general. Thank you for continuing to give your detailed, regular health data - you are helping scientists learn so much more about COVID-19. As a team, we can really make a difference.