LOUISE ARSENEAULT VOICES


that we want older people to enjoy. We need to start planning these years in early life, because we are aware that older people are affected by choices they made while young. We know that the early years have an effect on mental health, even at a great distance in time.” This raises the possibility of identifying groups whose later years can be improved by action taken during their youth or even childhood. “We are now getting the research tools to do this,” says Arseneault. “The UK has some of the best data in this area. Research here could lead to significant advances in understanding the ageing process.” This concern with the long-lasting effects


of childhood events reflects her own research achievements, based on several long-term cohort studies which are central to her work. With funding from the Medical Research Council, she is now principal investigator on the cohort which she originally worked on when she arrived in the UK in the 1990s, the Environmental Risk (E-Risk) Longitudinal Twin Study.


She says: “Cohort studies are a very powerful


tool for observing the lifespan and getting insights into human development, including mental health and mental illness.” Asked for a favourite finding from this research, she volunteers two. The first relates to two of her long-term


research interests: the causes of school bullying, a stressful and damaging experience for many children, and the use of twin data to analyse the origins of the problem. Arseneault explains: “Our cohort study includes genetically identical twins who were brought up the same household, and


“ Now there is more willingness


to see mental illness as common, and as part of everyday life


we focused specifically on twin pairs where one twin had been bullied while the other had not. Our findings indicated that those twins who were bullied had higher levels of emotional problems a few years later than their genetically identical twin who was not bullied.” This supports the idea that being a victim of bullying led to mental health problems, including symptoms of anxiety and depression, over and above genetic and environmental influences. Her second and related finding draws on the


”


National Child Development Study, the 1958 British Birth Cohort. It revealed that the experience of being bullied at school in childhood affected people’s mental and physical health, and their socio-economic outlook, all the way into middle age. She points out: “Nobody had realised the profound impact being bullied in childhood could have, and we tested this with an amazing data resource we have here in the UK. ” The outreach of this study was important in its own right and in Arseneault’s intellectual


Professor


Arseneault would like other projects in the economic and social sciences to include mental health in their thinking


development. She says: “When the paper came out in a very impactful psychiatry journal, it received a lot of attention from the media and our findings were reported on the radio and in the newspaper. That afternoon, I started to receive lots of emails from people saying, ‘your study describes my experience with bullying, my life’. That was when I realised that research can reach people and can generate public interest.”


Among the research that grew out of this success


was in interest in transitions, such as school changes or the shift from school to work. It shows that these transitions are key life events, which as she says “can be positive or negative, but can certainly be stressful.” Such transitions are also a point at which mental health problems can emerge or reappear. For example, bullying can stop for some individuals during the change from primary to secondary school. But Arseneault adds that “some of this negative experience can transition too.” Arseneault herself undoubtedly has an


existence which involves its own stresses and pressures. But she balances it by spending time in very different conditions in Africa. She explains: “In 2011 I went to a game reserve in Zambia for a three-month sabbatical, at a beautiful safari lodge with fascinating wildlife and wonderful people. It was the experience of a lifetime. I then carried on going there as a volunteer each year, and although my life is too busy now to volunteer for long periods, I intend to visit regularly for shorter lengths of time.” She adds: “I’d encourage anyone to do something like this. Instead of making what I do professionally seem unimportant, it helped me to realise the significance of everything I do in the UK and just how much I enjoy it.” n


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Louise Arseneault is Professor of Developmental Psychology at King’s College London. She was appointed to the new role of ESRC Mental Health Leadership Fellow in December 2016. For more information, see: www.esrc.ac.uk/news-events-and-publications/ news/news-items/renowned-expert-in-mental-health-appointed-as- esrc-fellow/


SUMMER 2017 SOCIETY NOW 25


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