Daisy Fancourt

University College London | UCL · Psychobiology Group, Department of Behavioural Science and Health

This study assessed whether a novel psychosocial intervention could reduce symptoms of postnatal depression (PND) in the first 40 weeks post-birth. Analyses were carried out of 134 mothers with symptoms of PND randomised into 10 weeks of group singing workshops or group play workshops for them and their babies, or usual care (trial registration: NC...

Theories of cognitive reserve, disuse syndrome and stress have suggested that activities that are mentally engaging, enjoyable and socially interactive could be protective against the development of dementia. Using data from the English Longitudinal Study of Ageing, this study shows that for adults aged 50 and older visiting museums every few month...

There is a growing body of literature suggesting that the arts can support mental health. However, both arts participation and cultural engagement are unevenly patterned across the population, with a strong social gradient. This social gradient is also evident in mental health. So it remains unclear whether the relationship between arts engagement...

Objective To explore associations between different frequencies of arts engagement and mortality over a 14 year follow-up period. Design Prospective cohort study. Participants English Longitudinal Study of Ageing cohort of 6710 community dwelling adults aged 50 years and older (53.6% women, average age 65.9 years, standard deviation 9.4) who prov...

Introduction We investigated whether changes in engagement in home-based creative activities were associated with changes in depressive symptoms, anxiety symptoms and life satisfaction during the COVID-19 pandemic, aiming to replicate findings from the UK in a USA sample. Methods 3725 adults were included from the COVID-19 Social Study in the USA,...

Objectives: There is evidence to suggest that leisure engagement may influence self-perceptions of ageing, but disentangling potential bidirectionality in this relationship is challenging. A better understanding of the directionality of this association is essential for designing more effective interventions to promote healthy aging. We therefore t...

Aims: Previous evidence suggests that engagement with heritage such as visiting heritage sites provides benefits for people's mental and social wellbeing, and helps to establish social capital. However, far less is known about whether living in areas of historic built environment also helps build social capital. Furthermore, it remains unclear how...

There is a growing body of evidence indicating the arts have a role to play in promoting good health and preventing and managing illness. WHO has called for governments to take an intersectoral approach, both within and across traditional areas of policy, to realise the potential of the arts for public health. To explore what global progress is bei...

Aims: There are concerns that the economic impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic, including employment inactivity and job loss, will have consequences for the UK population's health and wellbeing. However, there is limited qualitative research into how financial adversity contributes to poor health outcomes in this context. This study aimed to explore...

While much research has focused on challenges that younger and older people have faced during the COVID-19 pandemic, little attention has been given to the capacity for resilience among these groups. We therefore explored positive psychological experiences and coping behaviours that protected mental health and well-being. Participants were 40 young...

Background Increased numbers of domestic abuse cases were reported at the start of the COVID-19 pandemic. Many people experiencing abuse faced barriers to seeking support with service closures affecting the sector. Available evidence suggests women are overrepresented in the reported cases of intimate partner violence (IPV) and we aimed to learn m...

Leisure engagement has potential to slow decline in older age and limit increasing healthcare costs as the number of older adults increases, but the potential benefits of different domains of leisure activities on aging experiences remains unclear. We included 8,893 older adults (mean age=63.18) from the Health and Retirement Study, a nationally re...

Introduction Postpartum depression (PPD) affects around one in seven women globally, with these women in need of non-pharmaceutical treatment strategies. There is a long history of the benefits of singing for maternal mental health, and promising research exists showing the clinical effectiveness of group singing. Group singing interventions are be...

The growing ageing population has begun to pose a threat to global health due to social and psychological challenges experienced by older adults. To mitigate this, many countries promote hobby engagement to support and improve mental health. Yet, it remains unclear whether there is consistency in benefits across different cultural settings. We harm...

Background: There is a growing global awareness of the psychological consequences of long COVID, supported by emerging empirical evidence. However, the emergence and long-term trajectories of psychological symptoms following the infection are still unclear. Aims: To examine when psychological symptoms first emerge following infection with SARS-C...

People experiencing homelessness (PEH) faced unique challenges during the COVID-19 pandemic, including changes to accommodation availability, societal restrictions impacting access to essentials like food, and services moving to online and remote access. This in-depth qualitative research aims to add to the existing, but limited research exploring...

Background It remains unclear whether financial support interventions (e.g., furlough, mortgage freezes, foodbanks, Universal Credit) provide protection against the negative impact of financial adversity on mental health. Methods Data were from adults who took part in the UCL COVID -19 Social Study between 1 April 2020 and 4 April 2022 who had vari...

This study describes the causes and frequency of different types of discrimination during the COVID-19 pandemic using mixed methods. Quantitative data on seven types of discrimination were collected from adults in the UCL Covid-19 Social Study in July 2020 and July 2021 (N=15,154). From those reporting discrimination in July 2020, qualitative thema...

This study describes the causes and frequency of different types of discrimination during the COVID-19 pandemic using mixed methods. Quantitative data on seven types of discrimination were collected from adults in the UCL Covid-19 Social Study in July 2020 and July 2021 (N = 15,154). From those reporting discrimination in July 2020, qualitative the...

To Bourdieu, interaction with culture has symbolic power and drives the manifestation of social stratification. Many have adapted his theory and methodology, developing new models of cultural engagement. Here, to further integrate these theoretical and methodological approaches, Bourdieu’s tools were used to operationalise and interpret a Latent Cl...

Purpose Although arts engagement holds promise for reducing loneliness and enhancing social support, previous research has focussed on older adults. We investigated whether arts engagement was associated with loneliness and social support during adolescence. Methods We included 11,780 adolescents aged 11–21 years from the National Longitudinal Stu...

Background: Several quantitative studies have found a decline in physical activity in response to COVID-19 pandemic restrictions. The aim of the present study was to use large-scale free text survey data to qualitatively gain a more in-depth understanding of the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on physical activity, then map barriers and facilitato...

Background Gender-based violence is an important public health issue that has been exacerbated by the COVID-19 pandemic. Survivors often face barriers when seeking support for mental health and wellbeing and some find therapeutic value in creative arts. We aimed to explore how women with experiences of abuse used art during the pandemic to support...

Background People experiencing homelessness faced unique challenges during the COVID-19 pandemic, including changes to accommodation availability, societal restrictions impacting access to essentials like food, and services moving to remote access. There is a paucity of in-depth qualitative research exploring how the pandemic affected this populati...

There is growing evidence on the impact of arts engagement on flourishing. However, social gradients in arts engagement and flourishing may have led to an overestimation of this impact, and there is a lack of longitudinal research in young people. We aimed to test the longitudinal associations between arts engagement and flourishing in emerging adu...

People experiencing homelessness (PEH) faced unique challenges during the COVID-19 pandemic, including changes to accommodation availability, societal restrictions impacting access to essentials like food, and services moving to online and re-mote access. This in-depth qualitative research aims to add to the existing, but limited research exploring...

Background COVID-19 lockdown introduced substantial barriers to physical activity, providing a unique ‘natural experiment’ to understand the social factors associated with sustained physical activity. The objectives of this study were to identify the proportion of people who successfully sustained physical activity during lockdown and to explore wh...

Background: Government enforced restrictions on movement during the COVID-19 pandemic are likely to have had profound impacts on the daily behaviours of many individuals, including physical activity (PA). Given the pre-pandemic evidence for associations between PA and other health behaviours, changes in PA during the pandemic may have been detrimen...

Background Several quantitative studies have found a decline in physical activity in response to COVID-19 pandemic restrictions. The aim of the present study was to use large-scale free text survey data to qualitatively gain a more in-depth understanding of the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on physical activity, then map barriers and facilitators...

Background Demographic and infection-related characteristics have been identified as risk factors for long COVID, but research on the influence of health behaviours (e.g., exercise, smoking) immediately preceding the index infection is lacking. The aim of this study was to examine whether specific health behaviours in the month preceding infection...

Between March 2020 and March 2021, the United Kingdom (UK) experienced three lockdowns due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Given the evident association between arts engagement and wellbeing, this study was designed to compare the predictors and patterns of home-based arts engagement during these lockdowns. Data analysed in this study were from the UK CO...

Background: There is increasing interest in the potential benefits of referring older adults to engage in community-based arts activities to enhance health. The arts have been found to have wide-ranging benefits for older adults including being associated with an increased lifespan. However, it remains unclear whether they are additionally associat...

Background There is growing evidence for the impact of arts engagement on flourishing. However, social gradients in arts engagement and flourishing may have led to an overestimation of this impact, and there is a lack of longitudinal research in young people. We aimed to test the longitudinal associations between arts engagement and flourishing in...

Background The COVID-19 pandemic has brought about significant behavioural changes, one of which is increased time spent at home. Although lockdowns were typically short-term and allowed people to leave their homes for exercise and essential activities, some individuals might not leave their home for prolonged periods due to, for example clinical v...

Introduction We investigated whether changes in engagement in home-based creative activities were associated with changes in depressive symptoms, anxiety symptoms, and life satisfaction during the COVID-19 pandemic, aiming to replicate findings from the UK in a US sample.Methods 3,725 adults were included from the COVID-19 Social Study in the Unite...

Background People Who Inject Drugs (PWID) are subject to distinct socio-structural inequalities that can expose them to high risks of COVID-19 transmission and related health and social complications. In response to COVID-19 mitigation strategies, these vulnerabilities are being experienced in the context of adapted drug treatment service provision...

This study examined the association between greenspace and the growth trajectories of anxiety symptoms during the COVID-19 pandemic. Using data from 19,848 urban residents in England who were followed for 20 months between March 2020 and October 2021, we found that living in an area with higher greenspace coverage (exposure) was associated with few...

Background Postnatal depression (PND) affects 13% of new mothers, with numbers rising during the COVID-19 pandemic. Despite this prevalence, many women have difficulty with or hesitancy towards accessing pharmacological and/or psychological interventions. Group-based mother-baby activities, however, have a good uptake, with singing improving matern...

Aims Due to a prolonged period of national and regional lockdown measures during the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic, there has been an increase reliance on informal care for informal carers. In light of this, the current study compared the experiences of carers and non-carers on various mental health and wellbeing measures across six key time poin...

Background: An increase of domestic abuse cases was reported at the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, with many people living with abuse facing additional barriers to seeking support. Available evidence suggests women are overrepresented in the reported cases of intimate partner violence (IPV) and we aimed to learn more about how their lives were imp...

There is growing evidence for the impact of arts engagement on later life cognition. However, confounding by socioeconomic factors may have led to an overestimation of this association. We analyzed data from 4,344 older adults in the Wisconsin Longitudinal Study. We measured participatory (e.g., painting, making music, crafts) and receptive (e.g.,...

Rationale Leisure activities have wide-ranging benefits for physical and mental health. However, previous studies have often focused on “leisure” as a homogeneous group of activities. This study was therefore designed to take a prospective and comparative approach exploring different types of leisure activities, as well as investigating whether fre...

Government enforced restrictions on movement during the COVID-19 pandemic are likely to have had profound impacts on the daily behaviours of many individuals, including physical activity (PA). Given the associations between PA and other health behaviours, changes in PA during the pandemic may have been detrimental for other health behaviours. This...

Background: Governments have implemented a range of measures focused on changing citizens' behaviors to lower the transmission of COVID-19. While international data shows that compliance did decline from the start of the pandemic, average trends could mask considerable heterogeneity in compliance behaviors. Purpose: To explore trajectories of co...

The COVID-19 pandemic led to national lockdowns in countries around the world. Whilst lockdowns were shown to be effective in reducing the spread of disease, they were also associated with adverse effects on people’s mental health and wellbeing. Previous studies have suggested that time spent outside may have played a role in mitigating these negat...

While much research has focused on challenges that younger and older people have faced during the COVID-19 pandemic, little attention has been given to the capacity for resilience among these groups. We therefore explored positive psychological experiences and coping behaviours that protected mental health and well-being. Participants were 40 young...

Background Relationship breakdowns or conflict are frequent precipitants for self-harm thoughts and behaviours, but the majority who experience these stressful life events do not think about or engage in self-harm. Understanding factors that attenuate or exacerbate this risk is therefore needed. The aim of this paper is to investigate whether relat...

Background The COVID-19 pandemic has had substantial impacts on lives across the globe. Job losses have been widespread, and individuals have experienced significant restrictions on their usual activities, including extended isolation from family and friends. While studies suggest population mental health worsened from before the pandemic, not all...

There is a dearth of qualitative research exploring how freelancers working in the cultural industries have been affected during COVID-19. In particular, there is a lack of research exploring how socioeconomic and psychosocial adversities may have changed or evolved, and how these changes have been perceived and subjectively experienced by freelanc...

Background The aim of this study was to examine whether specific health behaviours in the month preceding infection with COVID-19 act as upstream risk factors long COVID as well and three specific long COVID symptoms.Methods1,811 UK adults from the UCL COVID-19 Social Study and who had previously been infected with COVID-19 were analysed. Health be...

Objectives To examine whether racial/ethnic discrimination predicts future COVID-19 vaccine refusal, and whether this association is explained by trust in government and the health system. Design Longitudinal observational study of racial/ethnic discrimination occurring since the start of the first lockdown (measured in July 2020) and later COVID-...

Background: There is a scarcity of research concerning what it is about arts engagement that may activate causal mechanisms leading to effects on health and wellbeing: their active ingredients. Further, the limited studies that do exist have tended to be relevant to specific contexts and types of art forms. The aim of this study was to carry out a...

This study examined the association between greenspace and the growth trajectories of anxiety symptoms during the COVID-19 pandemic. Using data from 19,848 urban residents in England who were followed for 20 months between March 2020 and October 2021, we found that living in an area with higher greenspace coverage was associated with fewer anxiety...

Objectives: There is a social gradient in both arts engagement and wellbeing that may have led to an overestimation of the impact of arts engagement on wellbeing. We tested whether participation in community arts groups was associated with wellbeing after removing confounding by demographic, socioeconomic, and health-related factors. Methods: Using...

AimsThere are concerns that the economic impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic, including employment inactivity and job loss, will have consequences for the population's wellbeing. However, there is limited qualitative research into how financial hardship contributes to poor health outcomes in this context. This study aimed to explore factors affecting...

Background Confidence in the central UK Government has declined since the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic, and while this may be linked to specific government actions to curb the spread of the virus, understanding is still incomplete. Examining public opinion is important, as research suggests that low confidence in government increases the exte...

Background People using maternity services in the United Kingdom (UK) have faced significant changes brought on by the COVID-19 pandemic and social distancing regulations. We focused on the experiences of pregnant women using UK maternity services during the pandemic and the impact of social distancing rules on their mental health and wellbeing. M...

Background Government enforced restrictions on movement during the COVID-19 pandemic are likely to have had profound impacts on the daily behaviours of many individuals, including physical activity (PA). Given the pre-pandemic evidence for associations between PA and other health behaviours, changes in PA during the pandemic may have been detriment...

Many studies have investigated the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on mental health. Throughout the pandemic, time spent at home increased to a great extent due to restrictive measures. Here we set out to investigate the relationship between housing conditions and the mental health of populations across European countries. We analyzed survey data c...

Many studies have investigated the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on mental health. Throughout the pandemic, time spent at home increased to a great extent due to restrictive measures. Here we set out to investigate the relationship between housing conditions and the mental health of populations across European countries. We analyzed survey data c...

To combat the public health crisis of Covid-19, governments and public health officials have been asking individuals to substantially change their behaviours for prolonged periods of time. Are happier people more willing to comply with such measures? Using three independent, large-scale surveys covering about 119,000 adult respondents across 35 cou...

Introduction Individuals living with acquired brain injury experience numerous psychological, physical, and social challenges. Since the COVID-19 pandemic, many have experienced additional isolation, mental health issues and have had limited access to social and physical activities otherwise available in the community. Materials and Methods Brain...

Background To date, public health policies implemented during the COVID-19 pandemic have been evaluated on the basis of their ability to reduce transmission and minimise economic harm. We aimed to assess the association between COVID-19 policy restrictions and mental health during the COVID-19 pandemic. Methods In this longitudinal analysis, we co...

BACKGROUND: There is a scarcity of research concerning what it is about arts engagement that may activate causal mechanisms leading to effects on health and wellbeing: their active ingredients. Further, the limited studies that do exist have tended to be relevant to specific contexts and types of art forms. The aim of this study was to carry out a...

Background The coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic has brought about significant behavioural changes, one of which is increased time spent at home. This could have important public health implications. This study aimed to explore longitudinal patterns of ‘home confinement’ (defined as not leaving the house/garden) during the COVID-19 pande...

When followed, there is evidence that social distancing measures play a major role in reducing the transmission of viruses such as COVID-19. However, not all individuals follow the guidance. We explored barriers and facilitators to compliance with UK social distancing guidelines during the COVID-19 pandemic through semi-structured interviews with 1...

Following publication of the original article [1], the authors identified an error in one of the variables in their code. This has caused:.

Arts and cultural engagement is a potential strategy for reducing or preventing reportedly antisocial or criminalized behaviors (those previously and problematically termed as “delinquent”) in adolescence. However, most research to date has focused on arts-based interventions and has not tested arts and cultural engagement in large population-based...

Background: Around one in ten people who contract COVID-19 report persistent symptoms or 'long COVID'. Impaired mental health and well-being is commonly reported, including anxiety, depression and reduced quality of life. However, there is limited in-depth research exploring why mental health and well-being are affected in people experiencing long...

Background Community and cultural engagement can support recovery, help symptom management and increase social connections for people with lived experience of mental health conditions. However, research suggests that people with mental health conditions experience significant barriers to participation. The aim of this study was to explore barriers...

Background Smoking is often colloquially considered “social”. However, the actual relationship of smoking with current and future social isolation and loneliness is unclear. We therefore examined these relationships over a 12-year follow-up. Methods In this cohort study, we used a nationally representative sample of community dwelling adults aged...

Background: The continued success of the COVID-19 vaccination programme in the UK will depend on widespread uptake of booster vaccines. However, there is evidence of hesitancy and unwillingness to receive the booster vaccine, even in fully vaccinated adults. Identifying factors associated with COVID-19 booster vaccine intentions specifically in th...

Introduction Stroke survivors, once in the community, face challenges with their long-term rehabilitation care and present higher levels of loneliness, depression and anxiety than the rest of the population. A community-based performance arts programme, Stroke Odysseys (SO), has been devised to tackle the challenges of living with stroke in the UK....

Aims This study aimed to examine potential heterogeneity in longitudinal changes in home-based arts engagement during the first national lockdown and following gradual easing of restrictions in the UK. Furthermore, it sought to explore factors that were associated with patterns of longitudinal changes in home-based arts engagement. Method Data wer...