Graham F Moore

• Cardiff University

Background Girls’ physical activity levels decline to a greater extent than boys as they enter adolescence. Role model interventions offer a potential solution to combat this public health issue. This study reports findings of a feasibility study of the CHARMING (CHoosing Active Role Models to INspire Girls) programme, a 6-week after-school primary...

Background Emotional problems among adolescents have increased substantially in recent years, and there is evidence that schoolwork pressures have also increased globally. We examine trends in perceived schoolwork pressure and emotional problems in Wales between 2002 and 2021, and associations between the two over this period. Methods Repeat cross...

Schools are an important setting for interventions to improve mental health. There is growing evidence that school climate – sometimes expressed as the perceptions that children have about the relationships, safety, values, and beliefs within their school – can impact child mental health. Poor child mental health is associated with feelings of dist...

In 2021, the Welsh Government introduced new statutory guidance for schools titled ‘Framework Guidance on Embedding a Whole School Approach to Emotional and Mental Wellbeing’. This document outlined new responsibilities for educational settings to work towards incorporating a whole school approach, with regard to the Framework in action planning, s...

Background Research consistently finds poorer health and educational outcomes for children who have experienced out-of-home care relative to the general population. Few studies have explored differences between those in care and those in receipt of intervention from social services but not in care. Children receiving social services interventions o...

Schools are important social institutions which play a role in reducing and amplifying inequalities, including health inequalities. A growing evidence base indicates that school and family socioeconomic status (SES) interact to create positive and negative health outcomes, with ‘benefits’ of attending a higher SES school greatest for children from...

Background Adolescence is a period of profound developmental change during which the prevalence of mental health problems starts to increase. It also typically coincides with a school transition. Understanding mental health trajectories through school transition is important to inform interventions to support young people's mental health during thi...

While transition from primary to secondary school is a positive experience for many young people, for others, it may be a difficult period of adjustment. Socioeconomic status (SES) may influence the likelihood of a positive or negative transition experience owing to differences in psychosocial (self‐esteem, self‐efficacy, social support) and flexib...

Background Epidemiological evidence shows a substantial increase in adolescent emotional problems in many countries, but reasons for this increase remain poorly understood. We tested change in emotional problems in a national sample of young people in Wales in 2013, 2017 and 2019 using identical symptom screens, and examined whether trends were acc...

Background Addressing violence related harm is a global public health priority. While violence is primarily managed in the criminal justice system, healthcare supports and manages those injured by violence. Emergency Departments (EDs), the primary destination for those seriously injured, have emerged as a candidate location for violence prevention...

Background Role models have been identified as a potential means to tackle the persisting low levels of physical activity among young girls. The aim of this research was to explore the involvement of community- and peer role models within the CHARMING (CHoosing Active Role Models to INspire Girls) intervention, an intervention which aims to increas...

Purpose This study explored the involvement of community- and peer role models within the CHARMING (CHoosing Active Role Models to INspire Girls) intervention, aiming to increase and sustain physical activity among 9–10-year-old girls. CHARMING involves community role models delivering different 1-hour weekly taster physical activities with peer ro...

Background: E-cigarettes are a popular smoking-cessation tool. Although less harmful than tobacco, use of e-cigarettes by non-smokers should be prevented. There is concern about the use of e-cigarettes by young people and that e-cigarettes may renormalise smoking. In May 2016, Tobacco Products Directive regulations aimed to reduce e-cigarettes' ap...

The education systems of the four UK nations are diverging, and the education system in Wales is undergoing major reform with substantially increased emphasis on health and wellbeing. Understanding the implementation of major policy and system reforms requires an understanding of system histories and starting points. This study aimed to explore the...

Background: Children receive care and support from social services due to risk of harm or impeded development, or because of disability. This study aimed to identify typologies of adversity experienced by children receiving care and support from social services, and to explore how typologies differ by sociodemographic characteristics. Methods: A...

Background Online communication has become an integral aspect of daily life for young people internationally. Very little research has examined whether the association between social media use and well‐being depends on who young people engage with (i.e. real, or virtual friendships). Methods Data were drawn from a subsample of students (N = 38,736...

Objectives Research on the adaptation of population health interventions for implementation in new contexts is rapidly expanding. This has been accompanied by a recent increase in the number of frameworks and guidance to support adaptation processes. Nevertheless, there remains limited exploration of the real-world experiences of undertaking interv...

Introduction Although the evidence base on bullying victimization and self‐harm in young people has been growing, most studies were cross‐sectional, relied on self‐reported non‐validated measures of self‐harm, and did not separate effects of in‐person and cyberbullying. This study aimed to assess associations of self‐harm following in‐person bullyi...

Normative transitions between educational settings can be important life events for young people, having the potential to influence mental health trajectories across the life course. Interventions to target transitions have been used to support children and young people as they transition between school settings, but there is limited synthesis of t...

Background In many countries, including in the United Kingdom (UK), COVID-19 social distancing measures placed substantial restrictions on children’s lives in 2020 and 2021, including closure of schools and limitations on play. Many children faced milestones such as transition to secondary school having missed several months of face-to-face schooli...

Objectives To coproduce a school-based protocol and examine acceptability and feasibility of collecting saliva samples for genetic studies from secondary/high school students for the purpose of mental health research. Design Protocol coproduction and mixed-methods feasibility pilot. Setting Secondary schools in Wales, UK. Participants Students a...

Background Today’s primary school children have grown up in a climate of strong smoking restrictions, decreasing tobacco use, and the emergence of e-cigarettes. Children’s exposure to tobacco declined substantially in years following the introduction of smoke-free legislation, with smoking uptake and perceived smoking norms declining. There is deba...

Purpose: Research demonstrates a strong socioeconomic gradient in health and well-being. However, many studies rely on unidimensional measures of socioeconomic status (SES)(e.g. educational qualifications, household income), and there is often a more limited consideration of how facets of SES combine to impact well-being. This paper develops a mult...

To date no study has examined time trends in adolescent consumption of sugar-sweetened beverages and energy drinks, or modelled change in inequalities over time. The present study aimed to fill this gap by identifying historical trends among secondary school students in Wales, United Kingdom. The present study includes 11–16 year olds who completed...

(1) Background: This study examines the associations between risk behaviours and adolescent emotional and physical dating and relationship violence (DRV) victimisation and perpetration, and how these vary by gender. The risk behaviours explored include bullying, cyberbullying, sexting, alcohol, and cannabis use; (2) Methods: Cross-sectional self-re...

Background: While tobacco smoking has declined among UK youth in recent decades, cannabis use has begun to show some growth. Given their interrelationship, growth in cannabis use may act as a barrier to continued reduction in youth smoking. This paper assesses recent tobacco and cannabis use trends in Wales, and their association, to explore wheth...

Background The Wales National Exercise Referral Scheme (NERS) is a 16-week programme including motivational interviewing, goal setting and relapse prevention. Method A pragmatic randomised controlled trial with nested economic evaluation of 2160 inactive participants with coronary heart disease risk (CHD, 1559, 72%), mild to moderate depression, an...

Background Secondhand smoke (SHS) exposure is higher among children from lower socioeconomic status (SES) families, contributing to the intergenerational reproduction of health inequalities. Legislation prohibiting smoking in enclosed public places was introduced in all UK countries between 2006 and 2007. Although opponents argued that it would dis...

If secularization is increasing over time, this should be observable in patterns of religiosity across the generations. The Home Office Citizenship Survey (of adults in England and Wales) and its accompanying Young People’s Survey provide a relatively rare example of individual-level and intergenerational British data on religious transmission, wit...

Background: Though motivational interviewing (MI) has demonstrated efficacy in a range of behaviour change settings, effectiveness will require successful integration into everyday practice. This study examines implementers' views on delivering MI within an exercise referral scheme and consistency of consultations with MI before and after a 2-day w...

The present study evaluated the impact of a national school programme of universal free healthy breakfast provision in Wales, UK. A cluster randomised controlled trial with repeated cross-sectional design and a 12-month follow-up. Primary outcomes were breakfast skipping, breakfast diet and episodic memory. Secondary outcomes were frequency of eati...

Secondhand smoke (SHS) exposure is higher among children from lower socioeconomic status (SES) households. Legislation banning smoking in public places has been linked with reduced SHS exposure in children. However, socioeconomic patterning in responses to legislation has been little explored.

Objective: The present study evaluated the impact of a national school programme of universal free healthy breakfast provision in Wales, UK. Design: A cluster randomised controlled trial with repeated cross-sectional design and a 12-month follow-up. Primary outcomes were breakfast skipping, breakfast diet and episodic memory. Secondary outcomes wer...

Concern is growing regarding frequent and excessive misuse of alcohol by young people. The average age at which young people in Europe start to drink is twelve and a half, and during the last decade, the quantity of alcohol consumed by younger adolescents in the UK has increased. Families are known to play an important role in shaping young people'...

Development and validation of a questionnaire to measure children's attitudes towards breakfast. A pilot study was used to select questionnaire items and assess test-retest reliability. The questionnaire was then administered to a larger sample of children together with a dietary recall questionnaire. Randomly selected subsets of these children als...

To evaluate the validity and reliability of a dietary recall questionnaire, designed for group-level comparisons of foods eaten at breakfast and intake of fruits, vegetables, sweet items and crisps. Validity was assessed relative to 24-h dietary recall interviews, and reliability by comparing the baseline data with 4-month follow-up data. Fifty-eig...

Development and validation of a questionnaire to measure children's attitudes towards breakfast.