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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).
University of Bristol research has led to a marked and persisting reduction in the number of cot deaths (sudden infant death syndrome or SIDS). The dramatic 67% fall from 1988 to 1992 in England and Wales resulted from the identification of risks associated with putting babies to sleep face-down (prone). Nationally, death rates have more than halved again (54% fall) between from 1992 and 2011, with an estimated additional 1025 lives saved between 2008 and 2011, after two studies conducted in 1993-6 and 2003-6 identified further contributory risk factors. Tens of thousands of SIDS deaths worldwide have been prevented thanks to the team's research, international collaboration and development of risk-reduction recommendations.
Professor Dieter Wolke has led several research programmes that delineate the long-term health effects of prenatal exposure to stress and moderate/late preterm, very preterm, and extremely preterm birth. His research has had a direct impact on international medical guidelines and educational recommendations for babies born preterm. The research has also informed European political debate (via a White Paper for the European parliament) on healthcare policy related to after care for preterm or sick children; has influenced UK policy regarding the education of children born preterm; and has contributed to public and practitioner understanding through media items issued, for example, by the NHS and the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists.
The Millennium Cohort Study (MCS) has influenced health policy and practice at local, national and international levels. Breastfeeding research based on MCS data has made a particularly important contribution to health education, and important insights have been provided on immunisation and obesity. The study has also helped to shape policy thinking and public discussion on issues such as social mobility, family poverty and child development. The MCS has not only created an invaluable resource for researchers in the UK and other countries, it has also served as a model for other cohort studies. Leading researchers around the world say it sets the benchmark against which other child cohort studies will be measured.
Three studies by Trinder have helped shape national policy and informed practice on three related issues regarding arrangements for children after parental separation. The three issues are whether or not there should be a statutory presumption of shared time, the scope and shape of education programmes for separated parents and whether additional punitive sanctions would assist with the enforcement of court orders for contact. Trinder's three studies have built a strong evidence base and have had an impact by:
1) helping to shape national policy on shared care, parent education and enforcement;
2) informing professional decision-making on shared care, parent education and enforcement;
3) stimulating public debate about shared care.
Every year 15 million babies are born premature and prematurity is the world's single biggest cause of newborn death. Babies born preterm cannot shiver and are dependent on interventions to prevent low body temperature (hypothermia). Implementing evidence-based interventions such as provision of thermal care at high coverage (99%) could increase survival of premature babies by 35-55% worldwide. In light of this, a Cochrane systematic review of evidence on low cost/low tech interventions to prevent low body temperature at birth in preterm and low birthweight babies was conducted. This produced strong evidence to support their routine use in practice, with particular support for use in low and middle-income countries. The findings and recommendations of the review are included in global action agendas of bodies such as the World Health Organization and UNICEF and they have been used as the foundation of numerous clinical practice guidelines worldwide.