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Durham Anthropology's Parent-Infant Sleep (www.dur.ac.uk/sleep.lab) has generated conceptual and instrumental impact affecting infant-health policy, health-care practitioners and parents at home and overseas. Our research has a) identified tensions and conflicts among official guidance, public health agendas, and cultural expectations surrounding infant sleep, and b) exposed how infant sleep is experienced and `managed' in families. The outcomes challenged accepted notions about infant sleep ecology and recommendations derived therefrom. Our research prompted and supported a re-evaluation of guidance to parents, contributed to clinical and public health policy, and is used enthusiastically at international, national, local, and individual levels in changing attitudes and practices surrounding night-time infant care. The impact of this research was recognised by ESRC (May 2013) with an award for Outstanding Impact in Society to Professor Helen Ball (http://www.esrc.ac.uk/news-and-events/events/celebrating-impact-prize/prize-winners-2013.aspx).
Parents, healthcare professionals and policy makers across the globe have benefited from Professor Ian St James-Roberts's research and writing on understanding infant sleep and crying. His findings over 20 years underpin government and third-sector guidance for health staff in the UK, US, Canada and Australia. His research has also informed — and eased the minds of — countless parents in these and many other countries. It features in the practical advice provided by the National Childbirth Trust (NCT), the UK's biggest parenting charity, and is cited on many other authoritative websites for parents around the world.
Professor Gilbert's research identified retinopathy of prematurity (ROP) to be a major cause of blindness in children in middle-income countries and cities in Asia, and delineated those infants most at risk. Since Gilbert joined LSHTM in 2002, her research and advocacy have led to ROP being prioritised for control by the Pan American Health Organization, with regional guidelines developed for Latin America, and national guidelines in many middle-income counties. Programmes for control are expanding and improving. Six Latin American countries have made eye examination mandatory. Although difficult to quantify, these initiatives are preserving the sight of many thousands of infants.
Research conducted by UEL's Drugs and Addictive Behaviours Research Group (DAB) and the UEL Institute for Research in Child Development (IRCD) from 1990-2012 has provided key information about the neuro-psychological risks of the use of the drug MDMA (Ecstasy).This information has been used by the US and UK governments, medical professionals and public information organisations. The research was included in the UK government Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs (ACMD, 2009) review of MDMA effects and informed government and public debate on the legal classification of MDMA. It has also supported associated debates around the potential harmful effects of MDMA. Subsequent media and public engagement with those debates has contributed to increased public awareness of the effects and risks of MDMA and engaged new audiences with important social and scientific issues. More recent research has informed parents and medical practitioners about the potential harmful effects of MDMA on specific aspects of infant functioning when taken during pregnancy.
(1) Enhancing the awareness of (i) women of childbearing age suffering from epilepsy and prescribed new and/or older generation AEDs, and (ii) their healthcare professionals. Empowering both to make informed decisions through evidence-based practice that will reduce/prevent the risk of harm to unborn children potentially exposed to AEDs in early pregnancy.
(2) A change in the process by which GlaxoSmithKline (GSK) practices post-marketing epidemiological surveillance of the new generation AED `lamotrigine' in pregnancy.
(3) Benefit to the methodological practice of other researchers in Europe involved with AEDs and epidemiological surveillance
(4) Contribution to building European system for reproductive safety evaluation
In 2011, largely on the strength of evidence assembled by Southampton based researchers, the Department of Health (DH) recommended that employers offer welders vaccination against pneumococcus, a decision with potential to benefit some 80,000 workers, and to prevent an estimated 130 cases of invasive pneumococcal disease over 10 years, a significant proportion of which would be fatal. The advice has received extensive media attention, and more recently has been extended to other workers exposed to metal fume, offering scope for even greater benefits. It has influenced research and safety practice internationally.