Ann Oakley

• University College London

Little is known about the impact of preventive interventions on inequalities in young people’s mental health. We conducted a systematic review of mental health promotion interventions based on cognitive behavioural therapy (CBT) delivered in schools to young people aged 11–19. Meta-analysis of 17 high quality randomised controlled trials (RCTs) sho...

Objective: To examine the impact of single or dual component incentive schemes on health and social behaviours, in young people. Design: A systematic review. Method: Systematic and comprehensive cross-disciplinary searches were conducted to identify research. Following screening for relevance, included studies were quality assessed and data extract...

Interventions to improve school ethos can reduce substance use but "upstream" causal pathways relating to implementation and school-level changes are uncertain. We use qualitative and quantitative data from a pilot trial to build hypotheses regarding these. The Healthy School Ethos intervention involved two schools being provided with facilitation,...

Purpose – Evidence from the USA/Australia suggests whole‐school interventions designed to increase social inclusion/engagement can reduce substance use. Completeness of implementation varies but contextual determinants have not been fully explored. Informed by previous interventions, the paper aims to examine these topics in an English pilot of the...

To determine the impact on teenage pregnancy of interventions that address the social disadvantage associated with early parenthood and to assess the appropriateness of such interventions for young people in the United Kingdom. Systematic review, including a statistical meta-analysis of controlled trials on interventions for early parenthood and a...

Peer-led sex education is widely believed to be an effective approach to reducing unsafe sex among young people, but reliable evidence from long-term studies is lacking. To assess the effectiveness of one form of school-based peer-led sex education in reducing unintended teenage pregnancy, we did a cluster (school) randomised trial with 7 y of foll...

CONSORT Checklist (63 KB DOC)

Study Protocol (2.4 MB DOC)

This study describes how much research has focused on fairer ways of promoting young people’s health; and what methods have been used to define and measure the differences in health they experience from living in different circumstances. IOE Research Briefings are short descriptions of significant research findings, based on the wide range of proje...

This research explores which socially diverse populations have been, or might be, reflected in research. IOE Research Briefings are short descriptions of significant research findings, based on the wide range of projects carried out by IOE researchers.

This research considers evidence on the effectiveness of social and environmental interventions for the prevention or reduction of obesity and overweight in children and young people. IOE Research Briefings are short descriptions of significant research findings, based on the wide range of projects carried out by IOE researchers.

Purpose – The limited evidence of effectiveness of existing teenage pregnancy strategies which focus on sex education, together with growing evidence that factors such as poor school ethos, disaffection, truancy, poor employment prospects and low expectations are associated with teenage pregnancy, has increased interest in interventions which targe...

This paper describes how barriers to, and facilitators of, good mental health amongst young people (11-21 years) were elucidated from a systematic review of studies of young people's views and how these barriers and facilitators were compared with effectiveness studies to identify effective and appropriate interventions, promising interventions nee...

This study examines the way that consent is reported for participation in school-based research involving children or young people aged from 5 to 16 years. Databases containing descriptions of research identified during systematic reviews were surveyed to determine to what extent consent is sought, and from whom, and to see whether reporting varied...

We have grappled with social disadvantage and teenage pregnancy in our recent systematic reviews evaluating the effectiveness and appropriateness of interventions to reduce the social exclusion associated with teenage pregnancy.1 As Henderson et al postulate,2 we found that programmes aiming to change …

A systematic review was conducted to examine the barriers to, and facilitators of, physical activity among young people (11-16 years). The review focused on the wider determinants of health, examining community- and society-level interventions. Four trials and 16 studies of young people's views were included. Evidence for the effectiveness of the i...

Most evaluations of new treatments use highly selected populations, making it difficult to decide whether they would work elsewhere. Systematic evaluation and reporting of applicability is required Randomised trials of health interventions generally describe outcomes among participants with little consideration of whether the effects can be general...

In 1995, when evidence-based health policy and practice was well established in medicine and was making headway in nursing and various therapies (Evidence Based Medicine Working Group 1992; Rosenberg and Donald 1995; Bury and Mead 1998; Dicers et al. 1998), the Department of Health (England) commissioned the EPPI-Centre to develop methods and an in...

The aims of this book are as follows To outline the context for development of evidence on health inequalities including: the available evidence on international patterns of health inequalities and their causes the history of policy responses to the problem of health inequalities in England and the role of the evidence. To document approaches to ev...

Integration of process with outcome evaluations has been recommended as a way of addressing some of the criticisms of Randomized Controlled Trials (RCTs) for evaluating social interventions. This is the second of two articles (the first was published in issue 10(4) of this journal) discussing the design, implementation and analysis of a process eva...

Public health decision makers, funders, practitioners, and the public are increasingly interested in the evidence that underpins public health decision making. Decisions in public health cover a vast range of activities. With the ever increasing global volume of primary research, knowledge and changes in thinking and approaches, quality systematic...

Most randomised controlled trials focus on outcomes, not on the processes involved in implementing an intervention. Using an example from school based health promotion, this paper argues that including a process evaluation would improve the science of many randomised controlled trials.

This article examines the quantity and content of sex and relationship education (SRE) delivered to students in Years 9–11 (aged 13–16 years) in 12 coeducational state secondary schools in England during 1997–2000. Teachers reported the delivery of an average of seven (range 0–12) sessions of SRE across the three years, with no SRE delivered in up...

Objective To assess what is known about the barriers to, and facilitators of, physical activity outside the physical education (PE) lesson amongst children aged four to ten years. Design Systematic review of intervention studies assessing impact on health outcomes and studies evaluating the 'views' of children and parents on what helps and hinders...

A systematic review was conducted to examine the barriers to, and facilitators of, healthy eating among young people (11–16 years). The review focused on the wider determinants of health, examining community- and society-level interventions. Seven outcome evaluations and eight studies of young people's views were included. The effectiveness of the...

To evaluate the effect of two forms of postnatal social support for disadvantaged inner city mothers on maternal and child health outcomes. Randomised controlled trial with economic and process evaluations and follow up at 12 and 18 months. The two intervention groups received either the offer of a year of monthly supportive listening home visits b...

English The ‘evidence movement’ poses particular challenges to social science. This article describes and reflects on some of these challenges, using as a case study the development over the period from 1993 of the Evidence for Policy and Practice Information and Coordinating (EPPI-Centre) at the Institute of Education, University of London. The ar...

This paper is the second of two drawing on data from a randomised controlled trial (RCT) evaluating the effectiveness of two support interventions in improving the health of mothers and their newborn infants in a deprived inner city area of London. The intervention discussed in this paper entailed women being assigned to one of eight community grou...

Evidence-informed policy and practice call on research addressing a broad range of research questions: evaluating the need for, and development, implementation, acceptability and effectiveness of interventions. Synthesizing this evidence requires methods that integrate the findings from diverse study designs. This article reports the development of...

Methods for systematic reviews are well developed for trials, but not for non-experimental or qualitative research. This paper describes the methods developed for reviewing research on people's perspectives and experiences ("views" studies) alongside trials within a series of reviews on young people's mental health, physical activity, and healthy e...

To determine whether increased postnatal support could influence maternal and child health outcomes. This was a randomised controlled trial comparing maternal and child health outcomes for women offered either of the support interventions with those for control women receiving standard services only. Outcome data were collected through questionnair...

This paper presents data on the need for sexual health information and advice of 4353 students aged 13/14 years in 13 English secondary schools. Data were collected by peer educators as part of a sex education programme, and through a questionnaire survey administered by researchers. Data illustrate young people's need for concrete information and...

To look at the processes and outcomes of identification and prioritisation in both national and regional R&D programmes in health and elsewhere, drawing on experiences of success and failure. Also to identify the barriers to, and facilitators of, meaningful participation by consumers in research identification and prioritisation. Electronic databas...

This paper reports aspects of a randomised controlled trial (RCT) evaluating the effectiveness of two support interventions in improving the health of mothers and their newborn infants in a deprived, inner city area of London. The intervention explored in this paper was the offer of a year of monthly supported listening visits from specially traine...

To assess the effects of providing daycare facilities for young children on the health and welfare of disadvantaged families. Randomised controlled trial. Eligible children from the application list to a daycare facility were randomly allocated to receive a daycare place or not. Early Years daycare centre in Borough of Hackney, London. 120 mothers...

Although widely accepted in medicine and health services research, randomized controlled trials (RCTs) are often viewed with hostility by social scientists, who cite a variety of reasons as to why this approach to evaluation cannot be used to research social interventions. This article discusses the three central themes in these debates, which are...

This article examines young people's views about sex education and focuses specifically on their views about interaction in single- and mixed-sex groups. Analysis of data from a survey of 3355 young people (aged 15/16 years), carried out in 13 co-educational English secondary schools (as part of the RIPPLE study), showed that the majority of girls,...

To describe the recruitment procedures used in a study of Social Support and Family Health carried out in a disadvantaged urban area of the UK in 1999-2001; to consider the impact of using inclusive recruitment procedures on the final research sample and implications for the conduct of the research and data obtained. Face-to-face recruitment of eli...

The RIPPLE study is a randomized controlled trial of peer-led sex education in English secondary schools. In 1997, 27 schools were recruited and randomly allocated to a programme of peer-led sex education or to act as control schools. In experimental schools peer educators in Year 12 (aged 16/17 years) were recruited in two successive cohorts and,...

This paper is the second of two presenting data gathered from peer educators in the RIPPLE study-a randomized controlled trial of peer-led sex education in English secondary schools. Peer educators were recruited from Year 12 students (aged 16/17 years) in 13 schools in two successive cohorts in 1997 and 1998. Following a standardized training prog...

Objective To examine the effectiveness and appropriateness of peer- delivered health promotion for young people. Design Systematic review of experimental studies assessing impact on health outcomes and 'qualitative' studies evaluating intervention processes. Methods Studies were sought by searching electronic databases and hand searching. Those whi...

This study describes the characteristics of clients referred to two UK parent support initiatives - Newpin and Home-Start - and documents key aspects of the referral process and clients' responses to the help provided. Data were collected from referral records on 214 families referred during 1992 to four Newpin centres and 349 families referred bet...

This paper describes the results of a 7-year follow-up survey of families who took part in a randomized controlled trial of research midwife-provided social support in pregnancy in 1986–88. Analysis of data 6 weeks and 1 year after delivery indicated that families offered the social support intervention had better health outcomes than those in the...

This paper is concerned with themes taken from two different areas of sociological theory and investigation. The first relates to work on social class and social relationships and networks, within which a central issue has been the extent to which interpersonal ties are differentiated by occupationally-based class groups in modern society. The seco...

A total of 509 women with a history of a low-birthweight (LBW, less than 2500 g) baby were recruited from the antenatal booking clinics of four hospitals and randomized to receive either a social support intervention in pregnancy in addition to standard antenatal care (the intervention group) or standard antenatal care only (the control group). At...

Investigated whether the provision of social support in a subsequent pregnancy for women who have previously undergone pregnancy loss made an appreciable difference to their physical and emotional health in that subsequent pregnancy. Data was obtained from a randomized controlled trial, The Social Support in Pregnancy Outcome (SSPO). Significant di...

Dixon-Woods and Fitzpatrick(1) rightly lobby for the use of qualitative research in systematic reviews, and note the difficulties in searching and appraising this kind of information, and integrating it with quantitative data. We have grappled with these issues in our recent Department of Health funded series of systematic reviews on the barriers t...