The short term aims of this programme are to provide an evidence synthesis which will identify and prioritise promising ideas for improving child health and well-being and reducing health inequalities. In the longer term, we aim to promote adoption and spread of innovations that demonstrate potential benefit and undertake full scale evaluations of ideas where more robust evidence is required.
In the first two years of the programme, projects will include:
Behavioural change to improve health
- Reducing non-attendance for vision screening: quantitative analysis of characteristics of non-attenders and qualitative exploration of barriers to redesign delivery of services.
- Improving dental health: qualitative research to promote parental supervised brushing.
Better use of routine data to support decision making
- Improving asthma care to avoid hospital admission: using data linkage to identify individual and service use characteristics of children at risk of admission so preventative care can be targeted.
- Identifying and supporting children at risk of a neurodevelopmental disorder: investigating if routine school assessments can predict children at risk and evaluating if early interventions improve educational and behavioural outcomes.
- Development of an attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) research cohort from routine data
Tailoring interventions to populations
- Supporting the provision of evidence based parenting programmes: qualitative and quantitative analysis of current programmes to improve effectiveness
- Tackling childhood obesity: improving the identification of adiposity in South Asian origin children and implementation of a tailored school based prevention programme.
