The following are short summaries of some of the studies that are being carried out using information given by parents; these are all extracts from past newsletters. All the newsletters can be viewed by clicking here.  A more detailed chart of all the studies can be found in the Areas of Research section.

BiB 1000
Newsletter 6 - September 2009

BiB 1000 is an exciting new project examining the causes of a growing childhood obesity problem. Here, BiB programme manager Dr Pauline Raynor explains more…

Why are we concerned?
The UK is experiencing a major obesity epidemic, which I am sure you have heard about. Childhood obesity is a serious health problem, which can have grave consequences for a child’s future health.

What are we doing in BiB 1000?
Many different professionals are working with children of school age to tackle the problem. But, by the time children start going to school, some are already very overweight. So the BiB 1000 project is focusing on very young babies and young children to try to find out how to prevent children becoming overweight in first place.

Who and what is involved?
BiB 1000 is a group of just over 1000 mothers who agreed to take part in this strand of
the Born in Bradford project when they were recruited for the main study between August 2008 and March 2009. Our specially trained community research team sees the families when the children are 6mths, 12mths, 18mths, 2 years and 3 years old. Some
families have already been visited and information collected for the study.

What happens?
Babies are weighed and measured and a questionnaire is completed. The  questionnaire asks about the mother’s health and the child’s family but is mostly about the child’s feeding, health and development, child care and general health. This information will help us to try and unravel the very complex issues around how and why children become overweight at such a young age and how we may try to help to stop this worrying trend.

Association for Study of Obesity – www.aso.org.uk

Measurement of Physical Activity in Young Children

Regular physical activity is good for our health and general wellbeing, whilst sitting for long periods of time can be harmful to health. The amount of physical activity a person does in early childhood is important because it often indicates how much physical activity they will do later in life. We would like to find out what influences physical activity and sitting behaviours in 2 to 3 year old children. We also want to know whether there are any differences in these behaviours between White and South Asian children. This will help us to develop tailored interventions, which will have long-term benefits for the health of children growing up in Bradford.

What does the study involve?
The study will take place in 3 parts. In Part 1, we are conducting a series of focus groups in Children’s Centres in Bradford with parents/carers of 2 to 3 year old children. This part of the study is already underway and the following Children’s Centres are currently taking part: Tyersal, St Edmunds, Canterbury and Farcliffe. Part 2 will find out which activity monitor is better for the measurement of physical activity and sitting behaviours in 2 to 3 year olds, and Part 3 will monitor these activity behaviours in 2 to 3 year olds and their parents/carers simultaneously, over a time period of one week.

Part 1: In the focus groups we are exploring the attitudes and understanding of mothers/carers who have children aged 2 to 3 years old in relation to their own and their child’s physical activity, sitting behaviours and health. We are also identifying what helps and what hinders regular physical activity in both the children and the mother/carer. At the focus groups we are also asking mothers/carers for their opinions on how easy or difficult it would be to use different activity monitors (like pedometers) with their young children, themselves and their husbands/partners. This will help us to decide which activity monitor is most suitable to use in part 3 of the study. We plan to have this part of the study completed by late December 2010.

Part 2: We want to test the activity monitors to see how accurately they measure physical activity and sitting behaviours in 2 to 3 year olds, and how practical they are to use in very young children. To do this, we will ask mothers/carers to come to a play session at their Children’s Centre with their child. The children will wear some of the activity monitors whilst taking part in fun activities with their parents/carers (such as playing with balls, walking, dancing and running). The play session will be video recorded to enable us to compare the observation of children’s activity to the information given by the activity monitors This will help us to decide which activity monitor to use in part 3 of the study. We plan to carry out this part of the study in December 2010 and January 2011.

Part 3: In very young children parents, family and the surrounding community are likely to be some of the most important influences upon their physical activity behaviours. We would like to examine how the activities of parent/carers influence the activities of 2 to 3 year old children. For this we will select the best activity monitor using the information gathered from Parts 1 & 2 of the study. We will ask 60 parents/carers and their 2 to 3 year old child to wear a physical activity monitor for one week. If it proves feasible to measure physical activity in these families, we will recruit more families to this part of the study. We plan to carry out this part of the study between March and June 2011.

We would love to have more Children’s Centres involved in the study. If your Centre would be willing to help us with any part of the study please contact:
Dr. Sally Barber
Tel: 01274 383696
Email: Sally.Barber@bradfordhospitals.nhs.uk

Allergy and Infection Study (All In)
Newsletter 4 and Newsletter 5 - May 2009

A team of community research administrators joined the BiB team in January 2009 and for three years they will visit families in their homes to collect information for the BiB ‘All In’, (Allergy and Infection Study).  The study aims to shed new light on why asthma, eczema and other allergic diseases have increased dramatically among children in the UK and other developed countries over the last 20 years.

“We want to know why – but one possibility is because common infections early in life have become less frequent,” said Dr Peter Dickson, Medical Director of NHS Bradford and Airedale, one of the health partners in the BiB project.  “Our aim is to assess the theory that excessive prevention of early childhood exposure to dirt can alter the development of the immune system.”

Our launch of the study is timely – new research has revealed a 40% jump in the painful skin condition of eczema in just four years. The onset of summer time often heralds a traditional rise in allergies, such as hay fever.

BiB is recruiting 4,500 children to take part in this particular study from the full research cohort of 10,000 participants that it hopes to have in place by early next year. Adam Benjamin, aged one, of Odsal, Bradford, launched the new study by becoming the first toddler to give a small blood sample to the team. A small blood sample is needed
from each child in the study to find out if they have been exposed to common childhood infections.

The researchers will look at how these infections affect the immune system and the chance of developing allergies. Researchers also took a number of body  measurements, including weight and height, while his mum, Michelle Pietkiewicz, filled in a questionnaire about his health and lifestyle. Each of these elements will be closely
analysed.

Once the study is completed the results will be shared with parents and may have a
major future impact on children’s health care. Everybody who takes part should be very proud!

Sudden Infant Death Syndrome
Newsletter 3 - September 2008

Dr Eduardo Moya, who works in the paediatric unit at St Luke’s, has been given £78,000 by the UK’s leading cot death charity, the Foundation for the Study of Infant Deaths, to carry out this research.  The aim is to find out what the main care practices are in families from many different backgrounds, so that practices which have a protective effect against SIDS can be identified. Care practices are the way that families choose to look after their children, when they feed them, what they feed them, when they put them to sleep, where they sleep, etc.

The researchers contact families when their baby is between 8 and 12 weeks old. They carry out a short telephone interview asking questions about the baby’s sleeping and feeding patterns. The researchers want to interview 5,000 families and this will take about 18 months. The Director of the Foundation for the Study of Infant Deaths said: “We hope that Dr Moya’s research will help us to design targeted baby care messages aimed at changing unsafe infant care practices and save babies’ lives.”

So well done Bradford mums and dads! You are helping to change health advice and to save lives through taking part in this research.