IMS Epidemiology

Seminar – 8 December 2015 – Professor Larry Frank
2015-12-08 12:30 - 13:30 UTC | MRC Epidemiology meeting rooms 1&2, Level 3 IMS, Cambridge Biomedical Campus, Cambridge, CB2 0SL, United Kingdom
All are invited to a CEDAR/MRC Epidemiology Seminar by Professor Larry Frank of the School of Population and Public Health at the University of British Columbia.
About Professor Frank
Dr. Frank is the Bombardier Chairholder and Professor in Sustainable Transport and the Director of the Health and Community Design Lab at the University of British Columbia. He specializes in the interaction between land use, travel behaviour, air quality, and health. He has been studying the effects of neighbourhood walkability on travel patterns and sustainability for 25 years and has led over $20 million in funded research and lead or co-authored over 200 peer reviewed articles and reports, as well as two of the leading books, Health and Community Design and Urban Sprawl and Public Health, on these topics. Read more.
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Seminar – 27 November 2015 – Dr Audrey de Nazelle
2015-11-27 13:30 - 14:30 | MRC Epidemiology meeting rooms 1&2, Level 3 IMS, Cambridge Biomedical Campus, Cambridge, CB2 0SL, United Kingdom
All are invited to the CEDAR/MRC Epidemiology Seminar by Dr Audrey de Nazelle of the Centre for Environmental Policy, Imperial College London
Selected results from the Transportation, Air pollution and Physical ActivitieS (TAPAS) comprehensive research programme on active travel
MRC Epidemiology meeting rooms 1&2, Level 3 Institute of Metabolic Science, Addenbrooke’s Treatment Centre
Abstract
Encouraging active travel has many benefits, but also perhaps some associated risks, and certainly much uncertainty still in how it works and how to estimate its impacts. The TAPAS programme was developed to tackle in a comprehensive way the multiple questions surrounding active travel, from its promotion to its overall impacts. This presentation will provide a brief overview of the health impact assessments developed in TAPAS, and cover some key results from the travel survey conducted in Barcelona and from the epidemiologic analysis on the combination of air pollution exposure and physical activity.
About Dr de Nazelle
Dr Audrey de Nazelle is a Lecturer in Air Pollution Management at the Faculty of Natural Sciences, Centre for Environmental Policy at Imperial College London. She is an expert in risk assessment and exposure science. Her research is at the intersection of environmental sciences, health behaviour, transportation, and urban planning. Her work aims at guiding decision makers towards health-promoting built environments and policies. It involves novel and holistic approaches to assessing behavioral, environmental and health impacts of urban plans and policies. Read more.
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Seminar – 11 November 2015 – Dr Janis Baird / Dr Christina Vogel
2015-11-11 12:30 - 13:30 | Meeting rooms, Level 4 Institute of Metabolic Science, Addenbrooke’s Treatment Centre (ATC), Cambridge Biomedical Campus, Cambridge, CB2 0SL, United Kingdom
All are invited to the CEDAR/MRC Epidemiology Seminar:
How do local food environment factors and psychosocial factors affect the dietary behaviours of mothers with young children and what are the implications for dietary inequalities?
by Dr Janis Baird and Dr Christina Vogel, of MRC Lifecourse Epidemiology, University of Southampton.
Meeting Rooms 1&2, Level 4, Institute of Metabolic Science, Cambridge Biomedical Campus
Abstract

Quality of diet is associated with level of disadvantage: findings from the Southampton Women’s Survey demonstrate that women with lower levels of educational attainment have significantly poorer diet quality than those with higher attainment. The poor diets of mothers with low educational attainment are of concern not only for their own health but particularly for the short- and long-term health of their children. A number of psychological and social factors, including self-efficacy and sense of control, have been associated with mothers’ level of educational attainment and dietary quality, but understanding of how local environmental factors interact with individual level factors in determining diet is more limited.
This seminar will focus on a programme of observational and complex intervention research that aims to understand and improve the dietary behaviours of women of childbearing age from disadvantaged backgrounds. We will describe the findings of our observational research examining associations between local food environment factors, individual factors and the dietary behaviours of mothers with young children, and will outline how our observational findings are being translated into complex community-based interventions.
About Janice Baird
Janis Baird is Associate Professor of Public Health Medicine at the MRC Lifecourse Epidemiology Unit, University of Southampton. Her research focuses on the translation of evidence of the developmental origins of health and disease into public health policy and practice. Janis co-leads a series of complex intervention studies which aim to improve the health and nutrition of women of childbearing age, with a particular focus on reducing inequalities. As well as having extensive experience of systematic review, she also has an interest in process evaluation and between 2011 and 2014 Janis chaired a group of researchers, funded by the Medical Research Council, who developed guidance on process evaluation within complex intervention studies.
Since 2009, Janis Baird and Christina Vogel have carried out research to characterise the food environments of women living in Southampton and explore their influence on women’s dietary quality. Their observational work is now informing the development of multi-level interventions which aim to improve diet by combining environmental strategies with individual-level behaviour change. Read more.
About Christina Vogel
Christina Vogel (nee Black) has had a long term interest in understanding what is it that makes people choose to eat the foods they do and, accordingly, completed undergraduate training in Nutrition and Dietetics and in Psychology at the Newcastle University, Australia. Christina has worked in public health nutrition for ten years in Australia and Europe. Her work has involved designing and delivering programs in remote indigenous and urban communities, conducting population health observational and intervention research, and developing public health policy. Christina has worked at the Medical Research Council Lifecourse Epidemiology Unit, University of Southampton, UK since 2009. She is part of the team that designed, implemented and evaluated the ‘Healthy Conversations Skills’ workforce development intervention and has developed a programme of observational research to enhance understanding of how the local food environment affects the dietary behaviours of mothers with young children.
Supported by an NIHR Doctoral Research Fellowship, Christina completed her PhD in 2014. Her research is the first in the UK to examine the psychosocial and educational pathways between the local food environment and dietary behaviours. She has developed a number of novel environmental metrics to describe place-health relations. Her work in structural equation modelling has been used to identify environmental, social and psychological focal points for an intervention to improve the dietary behaviours of mothers and their families which is in the early stage of development. Read more.
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