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BEDREHELSE-Bedre helse og livskvalitet

Scaling up evidence based early-life nutrition interventions for community resilience and lifecourse health (Nutrition Now)

Alternative title: Oppskalering av kunnskapsbaserte ernæringstiltak tidlig i livet for fremtidig helse (Matnyttig)

Awarded: NOK 15.9 mill.

In Nutrition Now, we aim to improve dietary care in the first 1000 days of life. We will do so by implementing existing evaluated interventions in the community where people live and work, in collaboration with stakeholders and end-users. Poor diet quality is a leading cause of non-communicable diseases, with large negative societal impacts well beyond the health sector. Over the past 40 years it has become clear that nutrition in early life strongly influences health throughout life. Still, there is a lack of public health action and response to these insights. There is also a lack of action on the existing evidence-to-practice gap; that successful interventions are not being implemented at scale for the benefit of population health and community resilience. We have previously developed e-learning interventions targeting nutrition, that have been evaluated with promising results in controlled settings. The interventions address diet during pregnancy, infancy, and toddlerhood, respectively, and include kindergarten educational tools. In this project we will scale up and implement the interventions in a community setting tailored to context and users? needs, especially those from less advantaged groups. Real-life effectiveness will be assessed in one municipality vs control before moving on to a fully scaled-up program at county-level. We will also investigate potential cumulative health effects of this lifecourse intervention approach of implementing multiple, low-cost, equitable, evidence-based e-learning resources at scale. The project harnesses an untapped potential for improving nutrition in early life through improved dietary guidance in primary health care and better feeding practices in kindergartens. Time is not on our side for reducing the NCD burden; we need to act to improve nutrition now.

Poor diet quality is a leading cause for the global epidemic of non-communicable diseases (NCD), resulting in large disease-related negative impacts well beyond the health sector. The understanding of how life-long health is rooted in conditions early in life has developed enormously over the past 40 years, and it has become clear that early-life nutrition strongly influences health throughout life. Still, there is a critical lack of public health action and response to these insights. In Nutrition Now, we will address NCD prevention through investments in dietary care in the first 1000 days of life. The project acts on the existing evidence-to-practice gap; that successful interventions are not being implemented at scale for the benefit of population health and community resilience. We have previously developed several e-learning interventions targeting nutrition, evaluated in controlled settings, showing promising results. They address diet during pregnancy, infancy, and toddlerhood, and includes kindergarten educational tools. Now, we will scale up and implement the interventions in a community setting tailored to context and users’ needs, especially those from less advantaged groups. The effectiveness will be assessed in one municipality vs control before moving on to a fully scaled-up program at county-level. This interdisciplinary project brings together experts with extensive experience in designing, implementing, and assessing scalable interventions in a variety of contexts. We will advance the field by investigating potential cumulative health effects of a lifecourse intervention approach, and implement multiple, low-cost, equitable, evidence-based e-learning resources at scale. The project harnesses an untapped potential for improving nutrition in early life through improved dietary guidance in primary health care and better feeding practices in kindergartens. Time is not on our side for reducing the NCD burden; we need to act to improve nutrition now.

Publications from Cristin

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BEDREHELSE-Bedre helse og livskvalitet