This bulletin is to keep you up to date with the work of the Centre for Diet and Activity Research (CEDAR). It is emailed to our academic, practice and policy partners. You can sign up for future Bulletins here.
1. What is CEDAR?
The Centre for Diet and Activity Research (CEDAR) is building understanding of the factors that influence diet and physical activity related behaviours, developing and evaluating interventions, and helping shape public health practice and policy.
We are one of five Centres of Excellence in Public Health Research funded through the UK Clinical Research Collaboration, and we are driven by the overall goal of supporting effective intervention to change diet and physical activity behaviours at the population level.
Hosted by the Institute of Public Health in Cambridge, we are a partnership between the Universities of Cambridge and East Anglia, and the Medical Research Council units of Epidemiology, Biostatistics and Human Nutrition Research. There’s more information about us on this website.
2. Evidence and Evaluation: have your say on CEDAR plans
We want our research to be used to develop and evaluate public health interventions, and be guided by the needs of public health practice.
As part of this process, we are developing a range of activities, and seeking feedback. This work builds on outcomes from the Evaluating Real Life Interventions workshop we co-hosted with the Eastern Region Health Observatory, (Erpho).
We have now identified four main areas to investigate and develop further:
- Communications and relationship building. Ongoing communications, and development of database tools will provide an evolving picture of the public health landscape in the region as it relates to CEDAR’s work – information that can be shared with services and policy makers. This will also help CEDAR develop understanding of public health perspectives on research, and identify opportunities for research translation.
- Online resources and toolkits. Drawing on our research, we will produce Policy and Evidence briefs, succinct summaries of research aimed at supporting evidence-based decision making. We are investigating the development of evaluation toolkits, either as standalone products, or in collaboration with other organisations.
- Training and workshops. We aim to develop training in the practicalities and methodology of evaluation, to support everyday practice within services. These may be delivered either as standalone workshops or as part of existing courses from organisations such as erpho.
- Capacity building in evaluation within services. This may involve supporting secondments of academics into service settings, and vice versa, to encourage sharing of skills and perspectives. A longer term focus could be support for evaluation posts within services, with the potential for direct partnership with organisations in the evaluation of interventions. The goal is to produce knowledge that can be shared and applied in wider public health action.
We want to hear your views on our plans. Read more and take part in our online survey here.
3. Commuting and Health in Cambridge: first results
The first results from the Commuting and Health in Cambridge study were published in the International Journal of Behavioral Nutrition and Physical Activity in November.
- Read the full paper Correlates of time spent walking and cycling to and from work: baseline results from the Commuting and Health in Cambridge study here.
A full list of CEDAR publications can be found here
4. CEDAR Seminar 23 January 2012: the Nutrition Transition
On 23 January at Cancer Research UK Cambridge Research Institute Professor Barry Popkin, Jr Distinguished Professor of Nutrition, University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill will be talking on The Nutrition Transition: Current High Income Country and Global Dynamics. All are welcome – no need to register, just turn up. Read more
5. Population health – methods and challenges – 24-26 April 2012
The demand for strong population health evidence has never been greater, and methods for producing, appraising, synthesising and translating evidence are developing rapidly. The MRC Population Health Sciences Research Network, UKCRC Public Health Research Centres of Excellence and the Scottish Collaboration for Public Health Research and Policy are convening the first UK conference on population health research methods, with a focus on the big challenges facing translational research in population health.
Not just for academics, this conference will appeal to the whole range of producers and users of population health evidence, including researchers, analysts, research funders, public health practitioners and policymakers.
Registration is open, with an early bird discount applying until Friday 2 December 2011. For more information and to register, visit www.populationhealthchallenges.com
6. Get active and learn about public health
The Institute of Public Health, which hosts CEDAR, has created a great way to get active and learn about public health. They have teamed up with Stride Design, a Cambridge web design company, to create the guided walk revealing 800 years and death and disease in Cambridge. It’s an unusual topic, but one that tells a fascinating story of public health in Cambridge and the United Kingdom. Read more
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Questions and comments to Oliver Francis: ocf26@medschl.cam.ac.uk