Potential links between obesity and educational attainment

A recent systematic review suggests a possible relationship between obesity and poor educational attainment. The findings indicate that obesity and poor school performance tend to be elements of a broader picture of inequalities in health and education, whereby disadvantaged socio-economic groups tend to have poorer health and lower levels of education. It is also possible that other factors influence obesity and attainment, such as gender, discrimination, and poor mental and emotional well-being. The review examined 29 studies. Owing to large variations in definitions, analyses and quality of data between the studies it is impossible to point to any causative or definite risk factors. You can read a summary and the full report here.
 

Becoming a Dad: the impact of fathers’ involvement on the mental health of children, mothers and fathers

Recent UK maternity policies seek to support the involvement of fathers’ in pregnancy, birth and childcare; but the evidence of the impact of such involvement is unclear. There are reported potential benefits, including facilitating family mental well-being, but there are also potential risks for family members when fathers are involved. In order to better understand the relationship between fathers’ involvement and the mental well-being of mothers, fathers, and children, we conducted a systematic rapid evidence assessment (SREA) to bring together evidence from the Millennium Cohort Study. We focussed on studies from this cohort as they provide current information about UK children and their families during the early years of their lives. Drawing from previous literature we used a definition of father involvement which entails three aspects: engagement, accessibility, and responsibility. The majority of studies focused on ‘accessibility’ in terms of family structure or on ‘responsibility’ in terms of father employment. Overall the studies suggest that fathers’ involvement positively influences maternal and child mental well-being; only one aspect of father involvement was measured in relation to fathers’ mental health: father employment was found to positively influence fathers’ mental well-being. The evidence assessment was commissioned to inform UK policy. Further research should focus on the impact of fathers’ involvement on their own mental well-being, as well as the impact of a more active or ‘modern’ fatherhood model encompassing engagement and an understanding of responsibility beyond a breadwinning role. Contact Ginny Brunton for further information.  

Women’s experiences of becoming a mother: a systematic review of thirty years’ research methods

The birth of a first child is an important transition for women and a critical area of research and health care policy in recent decades. This ESRC–funded systematic review examined women’s experiences about what influenced their successful transition to motherhood, to understand how well this evidence base addressed significant policy, practice and research issues around ‘normality’ and motherhood. We used standard methods to conduct a systematic review, including a methodological analysis of UK studies. A total of 60 UK studies out of 3,040 located references met the inclusion criteria. Studies focused most often on maternal identity (23%), mental health (23%), teenage motherhood (15%) and maternity care (13%). Many studies do not report even basic information on sample age, ethnicity, education and class; and in studies where information was provided, participants were predominantly white, cohabiting and middle class. As the art and science of systematic reviewing has grown in scale and sophistication, poor reporting and a non-inclusive approach to sampling have been increasingly highlighted as weaknesses in the evidence base for both quantitative and qualitative research. It is problematic to generalise about such homogeneous research samples, with an increasingly diverse UK population, and a persistent link between diversity and social disadvantage. Understanding what influences women’s transition to motherhood is essential in providing informed, generalisable but tailored information that emphasises ‘normality’ or common experiences. However, the patchy and inconsistent reporting of sociodemographic data makes it difficult to identify which influences affect which women. In order to begin building an evidence base on common experiences from which results can be applied, researchers need to be aware of these issues and address them in the design, conduct and reporting of their work. Contact Ginny Brunton for further information.

Reducing health inequalities by engaging communities

The EPPI Centre, in collaboration with colleagues at the London School of Economics and the University of East London, has recently started a project in which we are looking at community engagement in public health activities.  This has a particular emphasis on how engagement might reduce health inequalities. Previous work has shown that if communities are ‘signed up’ to an intervention or programme that they are receiving, people are more likely to participate and better outcomes can result. However, we do not know: 1) which approaches to engaging communities can reduce health inequalities; 2) which types of intervention work best when communities are engaged; and 3) the implications of the resources required. We are conducting a mixed methods systematic review, including economic analyses, to explore these issues. The project is funded by NIHR and is due to finish at the end of March 2012. Contact James Thomas, project director, for further information.

How effective are adult home cooking skills programmes?

We are currently undertaking a review to identify, assess and synthesise a range of evidence relating to the purchase for, and supply of tobacco to, young people.   It draws on UK and international literature to explore differences in the use of non-retail tobacco sources according to context and age.  It also assesses evidence on the effectiveness of approaches that limit the accessibility of tobacco to this age group.  It is intended to provide an evidence base for considering further policy measures to reduce smoking amongst young people.  The review uses a mixture of research methods for collating and synthesising the literature.  To find out more, view the protocol here.

Young people and access to tobacco

We are conducting a systematic review of the effects and appropriateness of interventions that promote home cooking skills for adults in the UK.   It will bring together and describe evaluations of community-based initiatives that aim to improve skills, knowledge and confidence for cooking in those aged 16 and over.  The findings will interest local authorities and other groups who wish to implement or refine a home cooking initiative for adults.  View and comment on the protocol here, and see Working With Us to see how you may contribute information. 
 

New review management tool

EPPI-Reviewer 4 is our web-based software programme for managing and analysing data in literature reviews. It has been developed for all types of systematic review (meta-analysis, framework synthesis, thematic synthesis etc) but also has features that would be useful in any literature review. It manages references, stores PDF files and facilitates qualitative and quantitative analyses such as meta-analysis and thematic synthesis. It also contains some new ‘text mining’ technology which is promising to make systematic reviewing more efficient. Version 4 was launched for public use last October. Visit this page to set up a trial account. You can read material on different types of review here.

Using text mining in systematic reviews

We have been trialling new text mining methods in our recent review work to help us reduce the workload involved in looking through the many thousands of titles and abstracts we identify as a result of sensitive searching.  We are using two techniques: automatic term recognition¹ to help focus our efforts on those studies most likely to be relevant - thus ‘prioritising’ our screening; and a support vector machine² that ‘learns’ to apply inclusion and exclusion criteria automatically for us, based on the decisions made already by researchers.

While this work is still ongoing, if our initial results are borne out, this method is enabling us to identify the expected number of relevant studies with a substantially reduced manual workload; a potentially extremely useful finding. Prioritised screening also allows the full-text document retrieval process to begin sooner, which can help prevent disruptions to workflow caused by delays in accessing copies of documents (e.g. waiting for interlibrary loans).

Service evaluation: a practical workshop for managers

This course, led by Kate Hinds, is for service managers in the public and voluntary sector, commissioning managers, and fundraisers who are developing bids that contain evaluation components. It will provide you with knowledge and skills to develop an evaluation strategy for a service in the health, education or social care fields.  Starting with an introduction to programme theory, you will map out your intervention and the factors that influence it. The course will help you to formulate some evaluation questions and researchers will give you advice on the best ways of answering them.

Course dates: 30 June - 1 July 2011
Download a flyer here.

Advanced skills and knowledge for systematic reviews: a flexible online course

This course, led by Dr James Thomas, will equip you with the skills to undertake a qualitative or quantitative synthesis in a systematic review. On successful completion, you will become familiar with the aims and rationale for different methods of critical appraisal and research synthesis.

The course is designed for experienced researchers who wish to gain an advanced, working knowledge of synthesis methods. You will learn about, and use, both established and emerging methods that you can then employ in your own research. The course will provide you with highly sought after skills and knowledge, supporting career development in those academic, policy or practice settings where systematic reviews are used and produced.

Course dates: 2 May - 29 July 2011
Browse the course website. 

Other courses

The EPPI Centre runs tailored research methods workshops on request.  Dates for scheduled short courses due to take place in 2012 will be available later this year .  We also offer an MSc on Research for Public Policy and Practice. Visit here for further details.  

Do you know of initiatives to promote adult cooking skills that have been evaluated?

We are interested in all evaluations conducted in the UK that either:
a) use in their study a group that receives cooking training, as well as a group that does not, or receives a different kind of training; or
b) use formal measures (interviews/questionnaires/structured observations) to explore:

• what helps or gets in the way of running these initiatives;
• the kinds of people that take part; and
• the acceptability of the initiatives to both participants and providers (process evaluations).

Please send further information to Rebecca Rees.  

Issue 8, April 2011

RESEARCH FINDINGS

• Potential links between obesity and educational attainment
• Becoming a Dad: the impact of fathers’ involvement on the mental health of children, mothers and fathers
• Women’s experiences of becoming a mother: a systematic review of thirty years’ research methods

ONGOING RESEARCH

• Reducing health inequalities by engaging communities
• Young people and access to tobacco
• How effective are adult home cooking skills programmes?

RESEARCH RESOURCES

• New review management tool
• Using text mining in systematic reviews

EVENTS

• Service evaluation: a practical workshop for managers
• Advanced skills and knowledge for systematic reviews: a flexible online course
• Other courses

RECENT PUBLICATIONS

• Mapping obesity schemes targeted at children
• RCTs for policy
• Young children's views on obesity, body size, shape and weight
• Cost-converter tool
• Utilising text-mining in systematic reviews
• Locating social and environmental reviews of relevance to obesity

WORKING WITH US

•  Do you know of initiatives to promote adult cooking skills that have been evaluated?

The Evidence for Policy and Practice Information and Co-ordinating Centre (EPPI Centre) is part of the Social Science Research Unit (SSRU) at the UCL Institute of Education, University College London.
 
The focus of the EPPI Centre’s work is on promoting systematic reviews of research evidence, on developing methods and tools for systematic appraisal of different research questions and different kinds of research studies, and on facilitating user involvement throughout the review and dissemination process.
 
The EPPI Centre currently works in the areas of health promotion and public health, education, social care and work and employment. Some reviews and methodological developments are undertaken by EPPI Centre staff. Others are done collaboratively with external organisations and individuals. The EPPI Centre is also contributing to the Economic and Social Research Council's National Centre for Research Methods, and is the home of the Methods for Research Synthesis programme.
 

Mapping obesity schemes targeted at children 

Aicken C, Roberts H, Arai L (2010) Mapping service activity: the example of childhood obesity schemes in England. BMC Public Health 10:310.

RCTs for policy

Oliver S, Bagnall AM, Thomas J, Shepherd J, Sowden A, White I, Dinnes J, Rees R, Colquitt J, Oliver K, Garrett Z (2010) Randomised controlled trials for policy interventions: a review of reviews and meta-regression. Health Technology Assessment 14(16).

Young children's views on obesity, body size, shape and weight

Rees R, Oliver K, Woodman J, Thomas J (2011) The views of young children in the UK about obesity, body size, shape and weight: a systematic review. BMC Public Health 11:188.
 

Cost-converter tool

Shemilt I, Thomas J, Morciano M (2010) A web-based tool for adjusting costs to a specific target currency and price year. Evidence and Policy 6 (1): 51-59.

Utilising text-mining in systematic reviews

Thomas J, McNaught J, Ananiadou S (2011) Applications of text mining within systematic reviews. Research Synthesis Methods DOI: 10.1002/jrsm.27.
 

Locating social and environmental reviews of relevance to obesity

Woodman J, Harden A, Thomas J, Brunton J, Kavanagh J, Stansfield C (2010) Searching for systematic reviews of the effects of social and environmental interventions: a case study of children and obesity. Journal of the Medical Library Association 98: 140-146.

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