Going beyond the mean in examining relationships of adolescent non-cognitive skills with health-related quality of life and biomarkers in later-life.

Several studies have established associations between early-life non-cognitive skills and later-life health and health behaviours. However, no study addresses the more important policy concern about how this relationship varies along the health distribution. We use unconditional quantile regression to analyse the effects of adolescent non-cognitive skills across the distributions of the health-related quality of life at age 50 and biomarkers at age 45 years. We examine the effects of measures of conscientiousness, agreeableness and neuroticism recorded at age 16 for 3585 individuals from the National Child Development Study. Adolescent conscientiousness is positively associated with ability to cope with stress and negatively associated with risk of cardiovascular disease in middle-age. Adolescent agreeableness is associated with higher health-related quality of life and lower physiological 'wear and tear', but negatively associated with ability to cope with stress in middle-age. Adolescent neuroticism is associated with lower health-related quality of life, higher physiological 'wear and tear', and a higher risk of cardiovascular disease in middle-age. All of these associations are stronger at the lower end of the health distribution except for the cardiovascular risk biomarkers. These associations are robust to correcting for attrition using inverse probability weighting and consistent with causal bounds assuming proportional selection on observables and unobservables. They suggest policies that improve non-cognitive skills in adolescence could offer most long-term health benefit to those with the poorest health.

Trends in GP incomes in England, 2008-2017: a retrospective analysis of repeated postal surveys.

BACKGROUND: There is widespread concern over the recruitment and retention of GPs in England. Income is a fundamental consideration affecting the attractiveness of working in general practice. AIM: To report on trends in average incomes earned by GPs in England, adjusted for inflation and contracted time commitment. DESIGN AND SETTING: Postal surveys of random samples of GPs working in England in 2008, 2010, 2012, 2015, and 2017. METHOD: Trends in average reported incomes of partner and salaried GPs were directly standardised for the reported number of sessions worked per week and adjusted for inflation. RESULTS: Data were obtained from between 1000 and 1300 responders each year, representing response rates between 25% and 44%. Almost all responders (96%) reported the income they earned from their job as a GP. Mean nominal annual income decreased by 1.1% from £99 437 in 2008 to £98 373 in 2017 for partner GPs and increased by 4.4% from £49 061 to £51 208 for salaried GPs. Mean sessions worked decreased from 7.7 to 7.0 per week for partner GPs and decreased from 5.6 to 5.3 per week for salaried GPs. Mean income adjusted for sessions worked and inflation decreased by 10.0% for partner GPs and by 7.0% for salaried GPs, between 2008 and 2017. CONCLUSION: The decrease in GP income adjusted for sessions worked and inflation over the last decade may have contributed to the current problems with recruitment and retention.