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Anxiety disorders are the most common emotional disorders in children, affecting up to 19% of all children and adolescents, and are associated with significant impairment and poor long term outcomes. Research at the University of Reading has highlighted particular parental factors associated with the development and persistence of childhood anxiety disorders. This research led to the development of a brief treatment which has proven effective for a significant sub-group (>70%) of patients. The treatment has been widely implemented in the U.K. and internationally. As a result, the research has increased access to evidence based treatment, which has benefitted affected children, their parents/caregivers and children's mental health services.
Research into parent-child attachment carried out by Professor Pasco Fearon and colleagues at UCL has had a major impact on clinical services, policy and wider society through the development of: 1) novel assessment tools for measuring parent-child attachment, which are used in a variety of clinical services; 2) innovative prevention and intervention programmes deployed throughout the world; 3) dissemination of research evidence and best practice, through training and policy work in the UK and internationally.
Professor Susan Golombok's research has made a significant contribution to policy formation and legislation regarding families created by assisted reproductive technologies. Her research has directly informed the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Act (2008); the policies of the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority (HFEA); and recommendations of the Nuffield Council on Bioethics, in relation to assisted reproductive technologies involving the donation of eggs, sperm or embryos and surrogacy, and with respect to families with single and same-sex parents. Moreover, her research has been widely recognised as having made a fundamental contribution to public debate on the social and ethical implications of assisted reproduction for individuals, families and society.
Frances Gardner and her team in Oxford have been studying antisocial behaviour in children for two decades. This programme of research has been instrumental in demonstrating that parenting programmes are effective in significantly reducing antisocial behaviour, thus encouraging uptake of these programmes by bodies that play a major role in forming UK central government policy relating to parenting and child behaviour, such as NICE and the (then) Department of Children, Schools and Families (DCSF). Given that lifetime costs of antisocial behaviour are so high, these interventions are likely to produce high return on investment, with cost-benefit analyses (e.g. NICE; DCSF) suggesting that over £200,000 per child could be saved. The impact of Gardner's studies has subsequently expanded beyond the UK, contributing to family intervention development in US trials, and to policy change by organisations such as WHO and the UN Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC), and by policymakers in New Zealand, Malta, Slovenia, Estonia and South Africa.
Research at York undertaken by Bradshaw, Skinner, Corden and Davidson, directly influenced child support policy throughout the period 2008-2013, informing the radical change that abolished the Child Support Agency and returned child maintenance to the hands of parents to make private agreements under the `Child Maintenance and Other Payments' Act 2008. It also contributed to the decision to disregard child support payments and thus allow child support to increase lone parent incomes and reduce child poverty. More recently our research has contributed to the evolution of policy under the Coalition Government in the 2012 `Welfare Reform' Act, which introduced new `relationship support' services to improve co-parenting relationships, reduce conflict and improve child well-being.
Christine Skinner (submitted under UoA:20 Law) has produced research with colleagues over an eighteen-year period that has impacted significantly on the development of child maintenance law and practice throughout the period 2008-13. Through various methods, her body of work and research expertise have informed the radical re-design of the UK child maintenance system, with a shift from a coercive, administratively imposed system to one that stresses parental negotiation and agreement. Equally, her work has directly influenced the development of a support infrastructure to underpin the new system's implementation. These impacts in turn benefit separating parents and the well-being of their children (estimated at 30% of all UK dependent children).
The University of Southampton's lifecourse cohort studies have led to a paradigm shift in the medical approach to obesity and non-communicable diseases. Research linking maternal pre-conception and early years nutrition with health outcomes for later life has directly influenced public healthcare policy at international (United Nations), national (Scientific Advisory Committee on Nutrition) and local (Southampton City) levels. Dissemination through medical practice and Southampton-designed public education programmes such as LifeLab means this research has already led to health benefits for tens of thousands of people, providing them with the information and tools to help prevent themselves and their children from succumbing to a non-communicable disease.
Every year over 5,000 children and young people in the UK die. Previous research suggests that 20-25% of these deaths may be preventable, and in comparison to many other European countries, the UK has higher child mortality rates. Child Death Review processes, introduced in the USA in the 1970s have been proposed as a means of learning from child deaths and driving prevention initiatives. Prior to 2008, the UK had no national system for reviewing and learning from children's deaths.
From 2006 to 2007, a team from Warwick Medical School led by Dr Peter Sidebotham undertook government-funded research examining a number of Local Authorities across England who had set up pilot Child Death Overview Panels (CDOPs). The findings from this research were instrumental in developing national policy and procedures for child death reviews. The Warwick research emphasised the importance of a multi-agency approach to reviewing all child deaths, with a strong public health focus on learning lessons for prevention, and robust systems for notification and gathering information. This, together with other research by Warwick Medical School on fatal child maltreatment published between 2009 and 2011, has contributed to updated national policy and interagency practice to safeguard children.
Although it is too early in the process to demonstrate any impact on the ultimate goal of reducing preventable child deaths, CDOPs have now been established in every Local Authority in England, as well as an all-Wales panel, and current work in Scotland and Northern Ireland is considering how best to implement such reviews. These panels are reviewing all child deaths in England, resulting in local prevention initiatives, and national returns enabling a clearer picture of the nature of preventable child deaths.
Jacqueline Barnes' evaluations of government initiatives promoting parenting and child development for vulnerable families have directly affected major policy decisions since 2008. Her study of the Home-Start programme demonstrated limited benefits of unstructured volunteer support, and informed recent NICE guidance on early intervention. Her subsequent evaluation of the Family Nurse Partnership (FNP) programme for vulnerable mothers changed government policy. The success of FNP, as demonstrated during the initial evaluation phase, led to ministerial decisions to more than double the provisions of this programme in 2010 and 2013. FNP has now been rolled out widely in England, Scotland and Northern Ireland.
Vitamin A deficiency (VAD) is a major public health problem in low- and middle-income countries with young children and pregnant women particularly at risk. Over the last 20+ years LSHTM researchers have carried out a series of definitive trials in collaboration with the Ghana Health Service to evaluate the impact of different vitamin A supplementation (VAS) strategies on maternal and/or child survival. Findings have had major impacts on national and global VAS programmes and influenced WHO guidelines on VAS in: infants and children 6-59 months of age; infants 1-5 months of age; postpartum women; and pregnant women.