Investigation of longitudinal trajectories of the home environment, and their role in subsequent anxiety.

This project aims to investigate the impact of home environmental factors, namely, household chaos, stressful life events, parenting and the parent-child relationship, on later anxiety, whilst controlling for the impact of genetic factors.

Anxiety disorders affect up to 32% of children and are thus considered one of the most common disorders impacting young people [1]. They are a major public health problem as they have a great impact on people's lives, comorbid with other disorders and are usually persistent over time. Research suggests that anxiety is caused by both genetic and environmental factors. Genetic influences account for one third of the risk for anxiety, with the rest due to the environment [2], which emphasises the importance of the environment in the expression of the disorder. The home environment is a key context in the development of children's psychopathology due to its relatively constant presence across development [3]. Thus, identifying the association between home environment factors and anxiety could lead to significant improvements in interventions designed to prevent and treat the disorder. To investigate these links, I will use data from the Twins Early Environment Study (TEDS), a 25-year populationbased longitudinal twin study. Twin studies allow the researchers to control for the effects of genetic factors and thus, to explore the impact of "pure" environmental factors.