In this article, as part of the Children, young people and families newsletter, we highlight some of the work Imperial have been doing as part of the CYPF programme.
Intelligence for public health action
Drs Hanna Creese and Dougal Hargreaves are co-leads (with Prof David Taylor-Robinson, LiLaC) on the project: Intelligence for public health action to improve outcomes and address inequalities in children and young people’s health.
This project aims to demonstrate the public health value of a range of data sources, alongside mapping and methodology work, and providing support to researchers across the CYPF programme and SPHR more widely.
An example of recent work is their publication: The role of dieting, happiness with appearance, self-esteem, and bullying in the relationship between mental health and body-mass index among UK adolescents: a longitudinal analysis of the Millennium Cohort Study and associated news story.
Evaluating the impact of an active school environment
Dr Bina Ram and Prof Sonia Saxena have recently received gained approval to start an evaluation to assess the impact of an active school environment on children and young people’s health (WP 3.1) (Co-leads: Dr Esther van Sluijs (Cambridge), Professor Carolyn Summerbell (Fuse), Dr Nadia Siddiqui (Fuse), Dr Miranda Pallan (PHRESH), and Dr Melvyn Hillsdon (Exeter))
The aim of this study is to examine how school policy and practices, physical location and local education authority policy support can create active school environments that support children’s physical activity, health and educational progress. Crucially, it examines potential for active school environments to reduce health and educational disparities in sub-groups of children with different social and economic backgrounds, health, and abilities.
This project builds on previous work in the last quinquennium to investigate uptake and benefits of physical activity programmes in primary schools:
- Project – Evaluating children’s physical activity, health, and wellbeing: iMprOVE cohort study
- Research briefing – Measuring what matters: a core outcome set for school-based physical activity interventions
- Developing a core outcome set for physical activity interventions in primary schools: a modified Delphi study
Credit: iMprOVE study
Credit: iMprOVE study
Credit: iMprOVE study
Working with researchers from other SPHR programmes
We also collaborate closely with researchers from other SPHR programmes. Drs Jennie Parnham and Eszter Vamos led work in the last quinquennium to understand and improve the nutritional quality of food provided in school meals. Their work showed the level of ultra-processed food in school food, revealing for the first time that while overall levels were high, school meals were preferable to packed lunches, especially for low-income children. This builds on their work evaluating the Universal Infant Free School Meal policy. They have been working on increasing the impact of this work by discussing it with members of the House of Lords, with OHID practitioners, on podcasts and in newspapers. They are looking to develop this work further in this quinnquennium (2022–2027).
