Claryn S. J. Kung

Serious youth violence is a public health issue nationally in the UK and internationally. The Youth Endowment Fund (YEF) was established in March 2019, with a £200 million endowment and a ten-year mandate, with a mission to prevent children and young people from becoming involved in violence. This article gives an overview of YEF’s successes and challenges to date, focusing specifically on the experience of evaluating tertiary interventions. After providing an overview of YEF’s approach to funding and evaluation, the article summarises YEF’s work focused on tertiary prevention, including: work to test interventions already being implemented in the UK; adapting and evaluating evidence-based interventions from other jurisdictions in the UK; innovations in a group approach to carrying out evaluations; and embedding a focus on racial equity in tertiary prevention. Next, the article discusses the design issues involved in high-quality evaluation of tertiary prevention, including the scale required and the processes for obtaining consent from young people to participate in evaluations. The article then documents the many challenges and lessons learned from implementing tertiary prevention evaluations, especially focusing on the recruitment and retention of young people. Finally, the article discusses the lessons and places them in a wider context.

Older adults experienced major changes during the COVID-19 pandemic and ensuing restrictions, and it might be expected that those who were already socially isolated before the pandemic were particularly vulnerable. We apply an outcome-wide longitudinal design on 4,636 participants (mean age 66.8 y) from the English Longitudinal Study of Ageing, observed in 2018/19 and early (June/July 2020) and later (November/December 2020) in the pandemic. Social isolation is defined using an index including marital status, social contact, and social participation in 2018/19. Using mixed models, we compare changes in well-being, health, health behaviors, financial well-being, and Internet use, between isolated and nonisolated participants. From before to during the pandemic, isolated participants (29%) experienced smaller declines in life satisfaction and quality of life and a smaller increase in loneliness. They showed greater declines in smoking and physical activity and were more likely to remain worried about their future financial situation. They also did not change in their likelihood of regular Internet use, contrasting with nonisolated participants who increased in this regard. The groups followed a similar trend for general health and sleep quality (no change), depression and anxiety (increase), and expectations of future financial difficulties (decrease). Although isolated older adults generally show poorer outcomes than their socially connected counterparts, they were somewhat protected during the pandemic on some fronts. Our findings highlight the need to continually care for isolated older adults but also to be attentive in times of unexpected crises to those experiencing extreme changes related to necessary policy responses.

Over the course of 2020 and 2021, the COVID-19 pandemic disrupted lives globally. In the UK, unemployment rate continued to increase during and post-lockdown periods, and job security and financial wellbeing deteriorated. It is important to understand whether individual decisions related to retirement plans have changed systematically as a result of the pandemic, especially among older adults who experienced greater rates of pandemic unemployment. Using the English Longitudinal Study of Ageing, this article examines changes in retirement plans of older adults during the COVID-19 pandemic and estimates the impact of health and financial circumstances on these changes. In June/July 2020, 5% of 2095 participants reported planning earlier retirement, while 9% reported planning later retirement. We found that poor self-rated health and financial insecurity were associated with intentions to postpone retirement. Additional risk of later retirement associated with poor health was detected among those experiencing financial insecurity. In November/December 2020, 7% of 1845 participants reported planning earlier retirement, while 12% reported planning later retirement. We found that poor health was predictive of a lower relative risk of later retirement, while depressive symptomology and financial insecurity predicted a higher relative risk of later retirement. The findings imply a contextual role of health factors in, and a persistent influence of financial insecurity on, retirement planning in the older population.

The COVID-19 pandemic brought about an increased reliance on the Internet for various daily activities. Given the known digital divide, it is important to understand whether older adults changed their Internet use patterns, but current evidence is limited to cross-sectional studies. This study documents changes in frequency and types of Internet use among older adults from before to shortly after the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic (2018/2019 to June/July 2020), and the factors predicting regular use during these early days of the pandemic. Using data on 6,840 adults aged 50 + from the nationally representative English Longitudinal Study of Ageing, we apply longitudinal fixed-effects models to examine within-individual changes in Internet use behaviour. There was no change in the likelihood of daily Internet use between 2018/2019 and June/July 2020, despite the increased digitalisation of services over the pandemic. Daily use in June/July 2020 was negatively related to age, neighbourhood deprivation, and loneliness, and positively related to partnership status, education, employment, income, and organisation membership. Using the Internet for making calls and getting information about Government services increased, which was important given the social restrictions and overall uncertainty. However, Internet use for finding health-related information decreased. As the world moves towards digital alternatives post-pandemic, it is important to continually ensure older adults are not at risk of exclusion.

Background: Longitudinal evidence on how Internet use affects the psychological wellbeing of older adults has been mixed. As policymakers invest in efforts to reduce the digital divide, it is important to have robust evidence on whether encouraging Internet use among older adults is beneficial, or potentially detrimental, to their wellbeing.Methods: We observe depressive symptoms and loneliness of adults aged 50 + in the nationally representative English Longitudinal Study of Ageing, from before (2018/19) to during the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic (June/July and November/December 2020). Our quasi-experimental difference-in-differences strategy compares within-individual wellbeing changes between older adults who desired to use the Internet more but experienced barriers including lack of skills, access, and equipment, with regular Internet users who did not desire to use the Internet more. To reduce selection bias, we match both groups on demographic and socioeconomic characteristics that are predictive of Internet use. We assume that in the absence of COVID-19 – a period of increased reliance on the Internet – the wellbeing trajectories of both groups would have followed a common trend.Results: Compared with matched controls (N= 2983), participants reporting barriers to Internet use (N= 802) experienced a greater increase in the likelihood of depressive symptoms from before to during the pandemic, but not worse loneliness levels. This effect was stronger for women, those aged above 65 years, and those from lower-income households.Conclusions: Besides enabling access to digital services, efforts to ensure older adults continue to be engaged members of an increasingly digital society could deliver returns in terms of a buffer against psychological distress.

Background The COVID-19 pandemic brought about an increased reliance on the Internet for various daily activities. Given the known digital divide, it is important to understand whether older adults changed their Internet use patterns, but current evidence is limited to cross-sectional studies. This study documents changes in the frequency and types of Internet use among older adults during the pandemic, and the factors predicting regular use. Methods The English Longitudinal Study of Ageing is nationally representative of adults aged 50+ in England, with a 75% response in their COVID-19 data collection (June/July 2020). To produce representative estimates, we apply the relevant survey weights to all analyses (N=6,840). We examine within-individual changes in the likelihood of daily Internet use and different types of use using individual fixed-effects models, which eliminate time-invariant confounders, and we further adjust for time-varying confounders. We analyse the pre-COVID-19 demographic, economic, and social factors predicting use during the pandemic, using a linear probability model. All estimations are conducted using Stata 17.0. Results There was no change in the likelihood of daily Internet use between 2018/19 and during the pandemic. Daily use during the pandemic was negatively related to age, neighbourhood deprivation, and loneliness, and positively related to partnership status, education, employment, income, and organisation membership. These findings are robust to different frequency thresholds (e.g., weekly, monthly) and when using an ordinal logistic model to account for these thresholds. During the pandemic, there was an increase in Internet use for making video and voice calls (44–65% higher than pre-pandemic use) and getting information about Government services (39–68% higher than pre-pandemic use), but a decrease in finding information on health-related issues (43–56% lower than pre-pandemic use). Increased use for getting information about Government services was more likely among women than among men (by 7–53%), and among those with lower, than among those with higher, wealth (by 2–47%). Older adults with higher education were more likely (by 18–51%) than those with lower education to have decreased Internet searching for health-related information. Conclusion Despite the increased digitalisation of services over the pandemic, there was no further increase in regular Internet use among older adults. Users were nevertheless more engaged in Internet-based communication and information about Government services, which was important given the social restrictions and overall uncertainty during the pandemic. As the world moves towards digital alternatives post-pandemic, it is important to continually ensure older adults are not at risk of exclusion.

Enhancing population resilience to adverse events is now a policy priority. Accordingly, there have been calls for more evidence on the determinants of resilience. We answer this call by identifying financial and non‐financial resources associated with psychological resilience during the COVID‐19 pandemic. Using longitudinal survey data, psychological resilience is measured by comparing distress reported pre‐COVID‐19 with distress reported during the outbreak and initial lockdown in April 2020. Methodologically, we compare differences in resilience and resources between people with identical gender, ethnicity, health, parenthood status, education, employment status, and region of residence (all measured pre‐2020). We also provide estimates from within‐household comparisons. Surprisingly, income, savings, and debt levels did not affect the likelihood of psychologically resilient outcomes. Cognitive ability, religiosity, and neighborhood social capital also had no protective effect. In contrast, we find robust evidence that non‐cognitive skills, measured by self‐efficacy, strongly protected against psychological distress. Self‐efficacy also dampened the increase in distress caused by large earnings shocks. These findings support investments in non‐cognitive skills that modify the damage‐function from adverse events.

We highlight the problem of loneliness, and argue that it is not only a public health issue but also an economic problem. We provide a brief review of findings from the key literature on the associations between loneliness, mental and physical health, and healthcare costs; and then present some evidence on its trends, the extent of socioeconomic inequalities and its links with health and healthcare usage, in Australia. We hope to encourage further economics research on loneliness, and related issues of social isolation and poor social support, to aid the design of policies and interventions to reduce loneliness.