This will be my last blog as Generation Scotland Principal Investigator. I have put the inevitable off for long enough. It is time for me to retire from academic life. As I sign off, responsibility for Generation Scotland passes on to my senior colleagues Cathie Sudlow, Riccardo Marioni, Caroline Hayward and Andrew McIntosh. They have […]

The worst of the Covid-19 pandemic feels like it might just be over. There are still large numbers of people catching Omicron, but most get only mild symptoms no worse than winter flu. There is a general feeling of fatigue, not so much from the virus itself but from living under Covid-19. We are being […]

The colours for our Generation Scotland logo were carefully chosen – the darker blue of Scotland’s national colours and the paler blue of our national health service. But blue has other connotations. In music, the blues are rooted in the pain and persecution of slavery and poverty, and the pain of lost love and loved […]

On behalf of the whole Generation Scotland team, let me start by thanking you all for your continuing support throughout 2021. You answered over 50,000 questionnaires! You contributed to 15 full research publications with more under review, and you supported vital work on the Covid pandemic. Our latest research You can also follow our social […]

What’s in a name? Why are we called Generation Scotland? The Scotland bit is pretty clear. We are all about the health and well-being of the people of Scotland. Why is a study in Scotland important and valuable? We have our fair share (and in some respects an unfair share) of the health problems found […]

My name is Heather, and I am a Reader in Neuroimaging – brain scanning – at the University of Edinburgh. I have always had a passion for finding out what our brains look like, and how something so grey, mushy, and innocuous-looking as the brain can make us human; formulate memories, guide decisions and behaviour, […]

A key message coming through from the Covid-19 pandemic is that we need to pay equal attention to our well-being, mental and physical health. It was not so long ago that opening up to mental health issues was seen as a sign of weakness. Now it is a sign of emotional strength. There is heightened […]

Before Covid-19, I had recently started a job working as the Generation Scotland Questionnaire Officer, where I was tasked with creating the online questionnaires that we send to old and new Generation Scotland volunteers. I had only just started thinking about what’s important to ask our volunteers when Covid-19 hit. We had to put our […]

Generation Scotland tackles important questions about health risk. What matters most: nature (genetic and biological factors) or nurture (environmental and social factors)? With rare exceptions, the evidence almost always points to a combination of both. Here’s why. Some medical conditions really are only down to genetics. We know of about 5,000 different examples. Most are […]

Thanks to vaccination, the number of new cases in hospital has plummeted, but the NHS is still under pressure. Long Covid is a worry. It’s a condition described as people who haven’t recovered by 12 weeks after first showing signs and symptoms of Covid-19. Every extra day spent in an ICU or a hospital bed […]