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Dr Darío Moreno Agostino (UCL Institute of Education) outlines his research into the mental health of baby boomers and generation X throughout their adulthoods, revealing persistent gender and socioeconomic inequalities and increased distress levels during the pandemic. It's been almost five years since the end of the COVID lockdowns.

A new study led by the University of Oxford has found evidence that kissing evolved in the common ancestor of humans and other large apes around 21 million years ago, and that Neanderthals likely engaged in kissing too. The findings have been published today  in Evolution and Human Behavior . This is the first time anyone has taken a broad evolutionary lens to examine kissing.

New research from The University of Manchester has found that areas with higher community resilience experience better health - including lower rates of drugs, alcohol and suicide deaths - even when those areas face significant deprivation. The study tested a new "Community Resilience Index" which measures how well local areas can withstand long-term pressures such as economic hardship, poor housing and inequality.

An innovative study by University of Manchester researchers has shown that mothers' feelings of being overwhelmed and unhappiness, not fathers', are directly associated with their children's feelings of nervousness, worry and unhappiness. The study, published in BMJ Open , funded by Wellcome and the Royal Society, definitively confirm the mother's role as central to the emotional wellbeing of the family unit.

Archaeologists have revealed new insights into how the world's first farming villagers formed communities, moved across the land and responded to outsiders. Researchers analysed the chemical signatures in teeth from 71 people, spanning the entire Neolithic period from 11,600 to 7,500 years ago. The teeth were found at five archaeological sites in what is now modern Syria.

Plain packaging of vape pods reduces young people's interest in trying them, but does not reduce interest among adults, according to a new study led by UCL and King's College London researchers. The study, published in the journal Lancet Regional Health and carried out in collaboration with Action on Smoking and Health (ASH) and Brighton and Sussex Medical School researchers, looked at survey responses from 2,770 young people in Great Britain (aged 11-18) and 3,947 adults (18+) in the UK who were shown either branded vape pod packs or standardised packs.

A study has found that adolescents become highly motivated to seek rewards after just a few hours of social isolation. This may be beneficial in driving them towards social interaction, but when opportunities for connection are limited could lead them to pursue less healthy rewards like alcohol or drugs.

An analysis of suicide rates in England has shown how factors like deprivation and transport density are linked to regional increases in suicide risk. The first of its kind study, led by researchers at Imperial College London, UCL and the London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE), looked at suicide trends in England from 2002 to 2022 combined with the influence of local socio-environmental factors on risk.

An expert from The University of Manchester has played a key role in a new research study evaluating the impact of active travel infrastructure improvements at Delapre Park in Northampton. Working in collaboration with researchers from the University of Northampton and Nottingham Trent University, Leverhulme Early Career Fellow Dr Jack Benton helped deliver a year-long study designed to assess how new pathways in the park have influenced public use and perceptions of the area.

Employers, trade unions and education providers in England are being urged to come together to make employment fairer for students. The call follows new research into the tumultuous landscape of student employment, with the picture especially fraught for young women and girls, who are significantly more likely to work during their studies than young men.

Universities are not including bereaved families of students thought to have died by suicide in the review process designed to prevent future deaths, a study by University of Manchester researchers has shown. Inclusion of families is a key part of guidance to universities on conducting such reviews but the study found that in most cases it did not happen.

People living in poverty are significantly more likely to experience loneliness than those on higher incomes - and this may be affecting their health, according to new research from the School of Anthropology and Museum Ethnography at the University of Oxford. The study, published in Public Health , examined survey responses from over 24,000 people across 20 European countries.

Adolescents with mental health conditions use social media differently than their peers, study suggests One of the first studies in this area to use clinical-level diagnoses reveals a range of differences between young people with and without mental health conditions when it comes to social media - from changes in mood to time spent on sites.

Childhood trauma raises the risk of harmful alcohol use, smoking, and drug use by age 18, according to a new study from the Department of Psychology. A new study published in the Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry reveals that childhood trauma significantly increases the likelihood of engaging in risky behaviours, including harmful alcohol consumption, smoking and illicit drug use, by the age of 18.

Adolescents who sleep for longer - and from an earlier bedtime - than their peers tend to have improved brain function and perform better at cognitive tests, researchers from the UK and China have shown. Even though the differences in the amount of sleep that each group got was relatively small, we could still see differences in brain structure and activity and in how well they did at tasks Barbara Sahakian But the study of adolescents in the US also showed that even those with better sleeping habits were not reaching the amount of sleep recommended for their age group.

Macaque mothers experience a short period of physical restlessness after the death of an infant, but do not show typical human signs of grief, such as lethargy and appetite loss, finds a new study by UCL anthropologists. Published in Biology Letters, the researchers found that bereaved macaque mothers spent less time resting (sleep, restful posture, relaxing) than the non-bereaved females in the first two weeks after their infants' deaths.

A report published by the Rees Centre at the University of Oxford and national charity Kinship suggests that ethnicity has significantly impacted the experiences of Black and Asian kinship carers when trying to access crucial support. Kinship carers are relatives or family friends who step up to look after children when their parents are no longer able to care for them.

A new study by researchers at The University of Manchester, using data from the #BeeWell survey , has found that sleep plays a crucial role in the mental wellbeing of adolescent girls. P ublished in Quality of Life Research, the study tracked nearly 28,000 teenagers in Greater Manchester over three years and examined how sleep, physical activity, and mental wellbeing are connected.

A groundbreaking study published in Nature Scientific Reports has revealed that people's social connections play a crucial role in determining whether they adopt preventative health measures. Researchers from institutions including The University of Manchester, the University of Birmingham, NYU and the Indian Institute of Public Health collaborated on this innovative Their study - which focused on malaria prevention in ten villages in India - looked at how different factors influence people's use of preventative measures like bed nets, insect repellent and protective clothing.

A UK-Brazil study links childhood trauma to psychiatric disorders in adolescents from lowand middle-income countries. A new study by a team of researchers from the UK and Brazil has revealed a strong connection between childhood trauma and the development of psychiatric disorders in adolescents living in low-and middle-income countries.