Adolescent, Child and Family Health

Overview

The Adolescent and Child Health programme is organised through a multidisciplinary team led by Professor Fiona Brooks.

The team currently consists of two professors, one visiting professor, a reader, one doctoral student and three researchers.

In addition there are over 37 active research practitioners from local NHS organisations and the higher education sector collaborating with the group as well as young people who form part of the public involvement in research hub.

Areas of research

Reflecting the global concern on increasing health risk behaviours and the national policy agenda for multi-sectoral and multi-location responses to the health needs of young people, the Adolescent and Child Health Research Group contributes to primary care knowledge and practice development in three core areas:

• Meeting the health needs of children and adolescents within primary care of which the nursing contribution is a central theme.
• Advancing the understanding of children's and adolescents' needs in relation to key health risk behaviours.
• The development of community-based interventions to promote the health and well-being of young people. This includes work on parenting interventions and the contribution of primary care to the provision of health promotion within the school setting.

Research activity relating to the development of interventions to enable primary healthcare to meet the physical and emotional needs of children and adolescents has continued since the last review.

A doctoral studentship has been appointed to consider the nursing contribution to the provision of obesity prevention services for young people through general practice. A focus of the group has been on theoretical and empirical work on understanding adolescent health risk behaviours with reference to sexual health, obesity and physical activity.

Significant achievements in this area include major international refereed publications that have advanced the understanding of adolescents' perspectives on obesity and physical activity and an ESRC funded project in collaboration with the University of Edinburgh.

WHO Health Behaviour in School Aged Children Study

Research into children's health and health behaviours and the factors influencing them is essential for the development of effective health education and health promotion policy.

Since 2008 Professor Fiona Brooks from CRIPACC and Dr Anthony Morgan from NICE have been co-principal investigators for England on the World Health Organization (WHO), Health Behaviour in School-Age Children study.

Josephine Magnusson and Ellen Klemera The Health Behaviour in School-Aged Children (HBSC) is a WHO study carried out in a large number of countries in Europe and North America. It aims to gain new insight into adolescent health behaviours, health and lifestyles in their social context.  

HBSC represents the longest running international study that focuses on the health behaviour and social context of young people, 2013 will mark the 30th anniversary of this study.

The study was initiated in 1982 by researchers from three countries. There are now 43 participating countries and regions. England has been represented in the past four survey cycles (since 1997).

In 2010 over 200,000 young people took part in the study across Europe and North America.