Winter Newsletter 2020
This year has been challenging for everyone, including us. Read about our year and how you can help in the New Year here.
It’s been a year like no other. The pandemic has affected us all, but in different ways and for some this has been a particularly difficult time with the loss of loved ones. Like many of you, the Generation Scotland team had to adapt quickly and work in new ways. We decided to focus our efforts on finding out how COVID-19 has affected our health and wellbeing. To do so, we ran a series of online surveys. We had over 40,000 responses. Many of them came from you. Thank you! We’re sharing our results with policy-makers to help their decision making and preparation for the future. You can find summaries of all of our CovidLife surveys on the Generation Scotland, found in the link below:
CovidLife
Over 18,000 people, including many of you, responded to our first survey, CovidLife. Unsurprisingly, many were feeling more depressed, lonely and isolated under lockdown. 40% of respondents reported feeling more anxious under lockdown than before COVID-19. 8% felt very anxious. This was particularly true for younger adults.
TeenCovidLife
We also ran a survey for 12-17 year olds called TeenCovidLife. They could tell us how they were feeling and coping under COVID-19. Over 5,000 responded. They said they were finding home schooling tough and were anxious and worried about falling behind. However, we did see high levels of happiness with family and at home.
RuralCovidLife
Last, but not least, we wanted to hear from those living and working in rural areas. We designed the questions in partnership with people from rural communities, to make sure the questions we asked were the ones that matters most to them. Over 3,000 have responded to RuralCovidLife. Results will come soon.
Playing a bigger part in COVID-19 research
You’ve played a much bigger part in COVID-19 research than just the CovidLife studies. We joined up with researchers across the UK to ask other important questions. For example, how does family history, the world around us, schooling, place and type of work affect the risk of infection and recovery? Thanks to you, we have learnt a lot and are learning more all the time.
Looking ahead
From Spring 2021, we’ll be inviting anybody over the age of 12 to take part in Generation Scotland. If there are other members of your family who might be interested in joining, they can pre-register using the link below:
Join Generation Scotland
They’ll be the first to know when we officially launch. We’re looking for new families to join too, so do spread the word.
For all the latest news, projects and up to date information, please visit www.generationscotland.org
Once again, thank you for supporting Generation Scotland. We wish you and your family all the best for 2021.
Yours sincerely,
Professor David Porteous
Research Professor at the University of Edinburgh
Principal Investigator, Generation Scotland
Contact the Generation Scotland Team
E-mail: genscot@ed.ac.uk │ Phone: 0131 651 8718 (9am-4pm, Monday – Friday)
We will try to answer all phone calls but please leave a message if there's no answer. We are currently unable to collect any post at our usual postal address during the COVID-19 ‘lockdown’ as we are all working from home.