Awards:
INPreP have been awarded a 1 year costed-extension by NIHR Global Health to continue our work on maternal and child nutrition until 2022.
Post doc Polly Hardy-Johnson has been awarded a grant from GCRF to set up a longitudinal qualitative study on teenager's experience of Covid-19 across Africa and India.
PhD student Daniella Watson has been awarded the NIHR SPARC placement to learn about community mobilisation with Profs David Osrin and Audrey Prost at UCL and research teams in India.
Reports:
Facilitator training report, Nanoro, Burkina Faso.
Read more about our facilitator training for the CHAT priority setting activity, based on Healthy Conversation Skills in the 'Useful Downloads' section below.
Recent Publications:
Who are we?
We are a group of world-renowned global health researchers from Sub-Saharan Africa and the United Kingdom. We are passionate about improving and sustaining the nutrition and health of communities in West and South Africa with a particular focus on maternal and child nutrition in the first 1000 DaysPlus. We are based in Burkina Faso, Ghana, South Africa and the UK. Colleagues across all four countries are working in collaboration to achieve our goals of reducing the double burden of under- and over-nutrition in Sub-Saharan Africa.
What are our aims?
INPreP aims to improve the nutrition and health of women and children before, during and after pregnancy by:
- Engaging with communities to understand the needs from their point of view.
- Reviewing the current policies and interventions aimed at improving maternal and child nutrition in Sub-Saharan Africa.
- Putting together an economic case for intervening pre-conceptionally
- Developing and implementing cost-effective interventions that will be designed in consultation with the communities and other stakeholders.
Where are we based?
INPreP team members are based in these research centres:
- University of Southampton, United Kingdom
- Clinical Research Unit of Nanoro, Burkina Faso
- Navrongo Health Research Centre, Ghana
- DPHRU, University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, South Africa
- PRICELESS, University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, South Africa
Meet our team
The INPreP research team consists of over 30 researchers working in four countries. We are a multidisciplinary group ranging from epidemiologists to social scientists. We encourage and support colleagues at all career stages, from Masters students to Professors.
Principal investigators in each country
Kate Ward (Director of INPreP), University of Southampton, k.ward@mrc.soton.ac.uk
Karen Hofman, PRICELESS, University of the Witswatersrand, Karen.Hofman@wits.ac.za
Shane Norris, DPHRU, University of the Witswatersrand, Shane.Norris@wits.ac.za
Engelbert Nonterah, Navrongo Health Research Centre, drenanonterah@gmail.com
Hermann Sorgho, Clinical Research Unit of Nanoro, hsorgho@gmail.com
For further details regarding INPreP team members, please contact the site PIs.
Why is our research important?
Under-nutrition, including being underweight or stunted (short for age), is a major public health problem in Sub-Saharan Africa. There is also a problem of increasing overweight and obesity, particularly in the expanding urban areas. This “Double Burden” presents challenges when developing interventions and policies to improve health. We aim to improve both aspects of this double burden to achieve optimal health for all.
Work Package 1: Policy review and stakeholder engagement activity
This work involves a thorough review of documented in-country nutrition policy relating to the first 1000 days (conception to age 2 years) in each of the study settings.
We are also arranging meetings with stakeholders including national and local government officials, health professionals, academics working in maternal and child health research, NGO representatives (e.g. Red Cross), members of international agencies such as the UN World Food Programme to understand their perspectives and priorities for better maternal and child health.
Work Package 2: Survive and thrive in sub-Saharan Africa: review of interventions in the first 1000 days plus
This work package includes a synthesis review of published and grey literature on interventions aimed at improving maternal and child nutrition and health. We are including a wide range of nutrition-specific and nutrition-sensitive interventions in our search strategy. Papers reporting the findings across WP1 & WP3, plus a synthesis of existing literature on nutrition based interventions including:
- The policy landscape and stakeholder perspectives across the nutritional transition
- Double duty nutrition interventions for optimal growth and development
- Framing the investment case for 1000 days plus double duty nutrition interventions
Work Package 3: Approach to economic case
A multi-disciplinary team including Health Economists based at PRICELESS, University of Witswatersrand will use published literature, information from other INPreP Work Packages and economic modelling to create an estimate of the improvements to health outcomes in relation to the cost of interventions.
Work Package 4: Qualitative research with local community members
This qualitative work aims to understand the needs from the perspective of people living in places where under- and/or over-nutrition are prevalent. We are conducting focus group discussions with men and women of different ages in Nanoro, Burkina Faso; Navrongo, Ghana; and Soweto, South Africa to get their insights into which interventions might be effective. Based on these findings we will be using the “Choosing Healthplans All Together (CHAT) tool along with the community to inform decisions about candidate interventions based on effectiveness and cost.
Work Package 5: Quantitative analysis of existing data on health and nutrition outcomes
In each of the three African sites, we will use regional and population based data and reports to determine:
How population based strategies have impacted maternal and child health.
Environment (physical and behavioural) impact on maternal and child health.
This work will be done using secondary data and review of reports in each country.
Work Package 6: Evaluation of feasibility and acceptability of two candidate interventions
The findings from work packages 1-5 will inform the selection of two candidate interventions that will be tested for feasibility and acceptability in the study settings. Based on the findings from this feasibility study we will design and develop larger scale interventions to be rolled out in the study settings and beyond.
Training and Capacity Building
Throughout the project we will be building the capacity of the teams both in Africa and the UK. Research Assistants, Masters students and PhD students are working on the project and will be developing their research skills. As well as obtaining academic qualifications, this will include activities such as: training in dietary assessment and using qualitative data analysis software; attending international conferences and presenting INPreP work; gaining experience of working within an international and multi-disciplinary team.
Full Research Title
The NIHR Global Health Research Group on leveraging improved nutrition preconception, during pregnancy and postpartum in Sub-Saharan Africa through novel intervention models, Southampton 1000 DaysPlus Global Nutrition, at the University of Southampton
Funding
This research was funded by the National Institute for Health Research (NIHR) (16\63\154) using UK aid from the UK Government to support global health research. The views expressed in this publication are those of the author(s) and not necessarily those of the NIHR or the UK Department of Health and Social Care