In general, work is seen as good for health and well-being and an aid to maintaining independence over the life course. Over the last few years more attention has been paid towards how people can continue to work from middle to old age. With increasing pension age and increasing costs in state benefits, government and health providers have been looking into various means to extend working life. We know that how work is organised and strategies that employers can implement (e.g. allow flexible working) are important for reducing workers stress and maintaining people in the workplace. Building on this, this proposal plans to build a team comprising experts from different backgrounds, organisations with an interest in health and work and middle and older aged adults from the general population, to explore the management of health conditions, and the role that specific health conditions play influencing changes in work in the middle and later stages of working life. To begin with, we will focus on the two most common reasons for work loss: (i) mental health/stress and (ii) musculoskeletal conditions (back pain and arthritis). Much attention has been given to mental health and stress but it is unclear how stress interacts with other health conditions in leading to work loss. Musculoskeletal conditions occur more with age and may become an even more common reason for work loss in future years as people are expected to work until they are older. The aims of the network are to (i) identify ways to maintain work participation throughout life and (ii) explore the basis for further studies and projects to improve the ability of adults to continue working. The output from the networks? activities will lead to presentations to policy-making groups to contribute to practice development and the design of policies and practices that can improve the well-being of older workers. The Network will also develop a multi-disciplinary research proposal aimed at assisting interventions to main work participation and healthy ageing.

Rheumatoid arthritis in a common, debilitating and painful disease affecting about 1% of the population and can result in increased mortality. Migration of leukocytes (white cells) from the blood into rheumatoid joints is enhanced by molecules called chemokines. Carbohydrates on the endothelial cells that line blood vessels bind chemokines and present chemokines to leukocytes in the blood. We have found that a particular carbohydrate-bearing molecule, syndecan-3, on the endothelial cells in rheumatoid arthritis binds the chemokine CXCL8. The project aim is to elucidate the importance of syndecan-3-chemokine interactions in rheumatoid arthritis. This will be carried out by studying mice that do not possess syndecan-3. The migration of leukocytes into tissues will be studied in syndecan-3 deleted mice to examine if this differs compared to normal animals. In addition, it will be determined if the severity of arthritis in these mice is altered compared to normal. Therefore this work could lead to greater understanding of disease mechanisms in rheumatoid arthritis and targeting syndecan-3 could ultimately be used as a new type of treatment. The research work will be presented at our annual hospital open day. This day is advertised widely and the general public and scientific professionals visit the laboratories and hear about the medical research being carried out in the hospital and medical school. In addition, we have groups of school pupils come and view the work we perform in order to foster an interest in science. When grants are awarded to our research centre an article is written for the local newspaper (The Shropshire Star) describing the research in lay terms. Furthermore, at a later date the results of the research would be published in popular journals and local or national newspapers as appropriate. All these lay communication activities are part of an existing programme and will not incur extra costs. The work would also be presented to the scientific community and health professionals at congresses in terms of oral and poster presentations, and in written form in published peer-reviewed journals.

Abstracts are not currently available in GtR for all funded research. This is normally because the abstract was not required at the time of proposal submission, but may be because it included sensitive information such as personal details.