BiB Scientific Festival

Born in Bradford is one of the largest research studies in the UK, tracking the lives of over 30,000 Bradfordians to find out what influences their health and wellbeing. Evidence from Born in Bradford has helped to change policy and practice and develop innovative ways to improve the health and wellbeing of our communities.

 Join us for our 8th scientific festival in the beautiful Salts Mill in the World Heritage village of Saltaire where we will share exciting new findings about how our society, our lifestyles, our genes and our environment shape our lives.

The festival will be launched by Sir Jeremy Farrar, Director of Wellcome who will be joined by leading scientists from around the world.

We will have a number of sessions happening during the day where you can learn all about the work we do.

Preconception: the left left shift

Are we missing a trick by providing interventions too late?   The session will explore opportunities to improve the health and social wellbeing of women and their families before pregnancy, using evidence from the Born in Bradford data and national recommendations.

Genes and health

In this session we will be hearing from leading researchers who are using information from Born in Bradford to better understand the ways genes impact on health and we will be looking at how these understandings can be used to shape the sorts of services we have locally. Some key questions that will be explored are:
Why should we be interested in how genes influence our health?
What have we found out in Born in Bradford?
What can be done with this information to improve health?

“Please Hear What I’m Not Saying”: maternal mental health in Bradford

BiB has looked in detail at maternal mental health, especially prevalence in different ethnic groups and  differences in levels of reporting across  GP, midwifery and health visiting records. Join us to hear about this work and engage in a discussion about what this means for families and health professionals.

Why did we collect and store blood and urine from mums and their babies in BiB?

In Born in Bradford we collect lots of information on families so that we can work out what makes some people healthy across their life (including in women when they are pregnant and in all of us during infancy and childhood) and other people unwell. We are interested in lots of factors and blood and urine samples can help us. We measure things in blood and urine that can tell us about biology (our genetics and what is happening to molecules in our bodies) and also about many other things like what we have been eating, whether we have been exposed to pollution and what medication we are taking. In this session we will describe what happens to blood and urine samples that we take on participants and some of the research we have done with these samples. There will be lots of time to ask questions.

Diet and nutrition in the early years

This session will explore the importance of diet and nutrition in early childhood.  We will highlight BiB evidence describing the foods found in BiB family homes and how this relates to diet and ethnicity. Our understanding of the importance of early life nutrition and the factors that determine what we eat as helped us create a programme called HAPPY; an antenatal and postnatal group programme that aims to optimise health and prevent childhood obesity.  HAPPY will be showcased in this session.

Girls JUMP! (Join Us: Move Play)

To celebrate the UCI Womens road cycling world championships setting off from Bradford on the 28th September, this session will examine levels of physical activity in women and girls’ in Bradford.  We will explore what this means for health and discuss plans to engage girls in more physical activity though JUMP! Join Us: Move Play, Bradford’s Sport England Local Delivery Pilot.

Health from the outside in – how environments influence our health and wellbeing

The session will explore how our environments influence our health and wellbeing. We will discuss cutting edge research exploring how everything from chemicals, green space and pollution affects us; and more importantly how we are working together to change our city to promote health from the outside in.

How (BiB) data saves lives

Join us to hear about the exciting work we do behind the scenes. We will explore examples of how data from different sources has been brought together by BiB and used to answer big questions about the health of people in Bradford. Learn about the work that we have done and how it’s making a difference.

Learning about health

We will be celebrating examples of Born in Bradford studies that have given us invaluable insights into:

• How influential eye health and spectacle wearing can be for children’s early literacy development
• The risks to school readiness that are posed by being born both premature and later on in the school year

We’ll discuss how this research is helping to break down the silos between health and education and also learn more about how these projects have led on to Bradford hosting some of the world’s largest randomised control trials, which are now looking at the impact of giving children ‘glasses in their classes’, and providing classroom based handwriting interventions. Last but not least, help us identify further health barriers to education, and shape our future priorities.

Click here to book on

This event is kindly sponsored by Bradford City CCGs.

Salts Mill is easily accessed by public transport. Saltaire train station is right outside with regular trains from Leeds and surrounding areas. We encourage you to leave your car at home if you can. We have reserved a small number of spaces for people who need to bring their car but these must be reserved in advance. If you require a car parking space please contact Carolyn.Clover@bthft.nhs.uk to reserve one.