What are the links between childhood circumstances and allostatic load? How does shift working impact on associations with DNA methylation and sleep patterns? Can machine learning help us understand the links between social, health and biomarker data when looking at predictors for future health? How does neighbourhood air pollution and green space affect inflammatory markers?

The Understanding Society Conference: Combining Biological and Social Data will be sharing novel findings into the links between our social environment and our biology. Drawing together researchers from many different specialisms, the conference is aimed at researchers from a wide range of disciplines, including health economists, social epidemiologists, medical sociologists, health geographers and survey methodologists, as well as researchers who want to learn more about the use of biomarkers in social research.

As well as hearing about the wide variety of research that has used Understanding Society biomarker, genetics and epigenetics data, the conference will also include time for discussion. The biomarker team from Understanding Society will also be available to answer any additional questions about the data.

Registration is now open and you can book your place here. The conference is free to attend, but places do need to be booked in advance.

Provisional Programme

09.30 – 10.00 - Registration and coffee

10.00 – 10.10 - Welcome - Michaela Benzeval, Director, Understanding Society

Session 1 – General SEP and Biomarker papers - Chair Michaela Benzeval

10.10 – 10.30 - Social class differences in objective health measures (biomarkers): evidence from Understanding Society

Presenter: David Blane, Imperial College London

10.30 – 10.50 - The association between self-rated health and biomarker levels is modified by age, gender and household income

Presenter: Pia Chaparro, Tulane University

10.50 – 11.10 - Utilising machine learning approaches for comparing the contribution of different types of data for predicting an individual’s r

Presenter: Mark Green, University of Liverpool

11.10 – 11.30 - Inflammatory biomarkers of stress mediate the effect of socioeconomic position on health: A latent growth curve model for the UK

Presenter: Eleonora Iob, University College London

11.30 – 11.45 Discussion

Session 2 – Role of transport & environment – Chair Michaela Benzeval

11.45 – 12.05 - Neighbourhood-level air pollution and greenspace and inflammation in adults

Presenter: Theodora Kokosi, UCL Institute of Education

12.05 – 12.25 - Active travel and development of diabetes: particularly beneficial for those at high-risk?

Presenter: Anthony Laverty, Imperial College London

12.25 – 12.35 - Discussion

12.35 – 13.20 - Lunch

Session 3 – Allostatic Load – Chair Meena Kumari

13.20 – 13.40 - Allostatic Load: what is it and does its composition vary by age? An examination of the Understanding Society biomarker data.

Presenter: Cara Booker, University of Essex

13.40 – 14.00 - Childhood circumstances, life course trajectories and allostatic load in later midlife

Presenter: Thijs van der Broek, London School of Economics

14.00 – 14.20 - Understanding the association between asthma and allostatic load

Presenter: Luke Barry, Queen’s University Belfast

14.20 - 14.40 Discussion

Session 4 – Methylation – Chair Meena Kumari

14.40 – 15.00 - Shift work, DNA methylation and circadian disruption: findings from Understanding Society (UK Household Longitudinal Study)

Presenter: Rebecca Richmond, University of Bristol

15.00 – 15.20 - Utilising an epigenetic biomarker of smoking in Understanding Society

Presenter: Alexandria Andrayas, University of Essex

15.20 – 15.30 - Discussion

15.30 – 16.00 - Break

Session 5 – Methods – Chair Paul Clarke

16.00 – 16.20 - Testosterone, risk, and socioeconomic position in British men: exploring causal directionality

Presenter: Amanda Hughes, University of Bristol

16.20 – 16.40 - Investigating interviewer and nurse effects on nonresponse to biological data collection in Understanding Society

Presenter: Fiona Pashazadeh, University of Manchester

16.40 – 17.00 - Discussion

17.00 - End