We have a longstanding interest in the long-term outcomes of nutritional exposures in infancy and childhood, e.g. through our work on developing allergies (Maslin).
PIHR hosts the EarlyBird study, which developed a unique childhood cohort examining insulin resistance among children and which is now offering opportunities to investigate the longer-term implications of metabolic variations for health (
Pinkney,
Hoskins).
Meinert is leading the evaluation of two Apps designed to promote the prevention and management of childhood obesity.
Dental health is an area that we have found to be particularly subject to social inequality in childhood and we specialise in developing community-based interventions to promote children’s oral health in UK and internationally e.g. United Arab Emirates (
Kay,
Paisi,
Nasser,
Witton,
Callaghan).
Spanning a wide range of issues, including anti-social behaviour, bullying, child maltreatment, early childhood development and social-emotional learning, we conduct research on how to improve child psychosocial outcomes, interventions including ADAPT, a home visiting programme for young mothers and
Chance UK adaptation, a mentoring programme for children with behavioural and emotional difficulties (
Axford).
We also have significant research expertise in paediatric nursing, streams including child and family centred care (International Network for Child and Family Centred Care, co-Chaired by
Neill), patient and family witnessed resuscitation, end-of-life care, paediatric sepsis, patient and family reported outcome measures and clinical care improvement (
Latour); and the presentation and management of acute childhood illness in children under five years of age, predominantly in the home and in first contact health services, such as primary care and urgent and emergency care (
Neill).
PIHR hosts
ASK SNIFF, a programme of research developing video based information resources to help families with young children understand signs and symptoms of acute illness so that they can spot when their child is sick.
The
Dietetics, Human Nutrition and Health group researches the nutritional management of disease in childhood. Prominent projects include the
CORE-KDT study which aims to identify a list of the most important outcomes to measure for children with epilepsy treated with the ketogenic diet.
Research often uses seizure control and the side effects of a ketogenic diet as the main way of assessing ketogenic diet therapy (these are known as ‘outcomes’). However, we also think it is vital to consider outcomes that are important to the children receiving treatment and their parents. Other outcomes may include measurements of physical health, mental health and quality of life, to name a few.
The institute also incorporates multi-disciplinary research into children with long term and acquired neurological conditions including Down Syndrome, Cerebral Palsy, Ataxia and Posterior Fossa Tumour (
Marsden,
Bunn). NIHR funded research, partnering with Alder Hey (the ASPECT trial) has acted to validate outcome measures for use in rehabilitation of balance (
Bunn) and evaluate a ‘hospital to home’ exergaming intervention (collaborating across 5 NHS sites before and during the COVID19 pandemic). A large multi-disciplinary team are currently engaged in co-producing guidelines for allied health and nursing care of children with a rare neurological condition called Ataxia Telangiectasia (
Bunn).
