Associations between diabetes and education
Research type
Research Study
Full title
Trajectories of diabetes related health measures (from linked lab data) and subsequent health and educational outcomes
IRAS ID
230333
Contact name
Robert French
Contact email
Sponsor organisation
Cardiff University
Duration of Study in the UK
10 years, 0 months, 0 days
Research summary
Motivation for the research:
Type 1 diabetes (T1D), the type most common in children, is estimated to account for £1 billion in direct costs and £0.9 billion in indirect costs for the UK each year. A child with T1D must self-inject insulin to keep blood sugar within acceptable limits, the amount needed varying with what they have eaten and planned physical activities. Our research asks whether children with diabetes experience poor outcomes with respect to their education and to what extent these outcomes may be influenced by the quality of their diabetes management. This is an important question not just because of the direct medical effects of diabetes on the brain caused by low (‘hypos’) or high sugar levels, but also because management of T1D can be a time-consuming and isolating process.
Aims of the research:
The overall aim of the research is to better understand the effects of diabetes on educational outcomes. We also recognise that education may also have an impact on an individual’s diabetes management. We are interested in how other factors influence the relationships between health and education, these include characteristics of the child (e.g. gender), their families (e.g. single parent families), and the health services they use (e.g. type of diabetes clinic).
Objectives of the research:
Through an ethically acceptable anonymised process of linking databases, we can link the educational records of children with diabetes collected by schools to health records, to quantify the associations between differences in levels of HbA1c (an indicator of longer term blood glucose levels) and educational outcomes.
REC name
Wales REC 6
REC reference
17/WA/0410
Date of REC Opinion
18 Dec 2017
REC opinion
Favourable Opinion