Our new ACRC Fellowships are designed to provide talented early career researchers with the support required to develop into leading research-active academics at the University of Edinburgh. ACRC Fellow Dr Jean Stafford Dr Jean StaffordACRC FellowMy ACRC fellowship will investigate the interface between physical and mental health and the role of the social environment in healthy ageing, using epidemiological and causal inference methods applied to large, longitudinal datasets. Fellowship backgroundMental health and social relationships are closely connected and are increasingly recognised as cornerstones of healthy ageing. Factors such as low mood, social isolation and loneliness have been linked to multiple health outcomes in later life, including cognitive ageing and multimorbidity. Yet despite this, the pathways connecting mental health and the social environment with health outcomes in later life remain unclear, with questions around causality, timing and underlying mechanisms.My fellowship aims to address these gaps in knowledge through a multidisciplinary research programme focused on the interface between physical and mental health and the role of the social environment in healthy ageing. Leveraging epidemiological and causal inference approaches, I will work with multiple large-scale datasets – including electronic health records and birth cohort studies – to identify risk factors and pathways that could inform public health and clinical practice. In particular, this research could help to establish possible targets to prevent or delay adverse health outcomes in later life, identify those at higher risk earlier, and contribute to clinical management for people living with multiple health conditions in later life. My research backgroundI am an epidemiologist with a background in cognitive ageing and the mental and social health of older people. I currently hold an Alzheimer's Society postdoctoral fellowship investigating how life course mental health influences cognitive ageing and dementia risk. My research career began with a Psychology degree at the University of Edinburgh, followed by a MRC-funded PhD and a BRC bridging fellowship at UCL. My PhD and bridging fellowship investigated the epidemiology of late-life psychosis and its association with dementia using Swedish register data, in collaboration with researchers at the Karolinska Institute. Following this, I moved to the MRC Unit for Lifelong Health and Ageing at UCL, where I investigated links between social relationships, cognition and dementia using a multi-cohort approach as part of a large international consortium. I am delighted to be joining the University of Edinburgh as an ACRC fellow to contribute to ongoing research on the health of older people within the ACRC and across the university. This article was published on 2025-01-30