MRC Epidemiology Unit
The latest news from the MRC Epidemiology Unit
Welcome to the winter 2025 epigram, the quarterly newsletter from the MRC Epidemiology Unit at the University of Cambridge.
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Explore with us at the Cambridge Festival
This year’s Cambridge Festival takes place between 19 March and 4 April.
The festival is a mixture of online, on-demand, and in-person events. Our events are:
Fibre – what gets you going? – 22 March, 11am – 4pm
How much fibre is in the food you eat? Join scientists from the MRC Epidemiology Unit at this drop-in event for families.
- Cambridge Academy for Science and Technology (No registration required)
Promoting Play in Preschoolers, why it matters for health and wellbeing – 25 March, 8pm
In her online Cambridge Festival talk Dr Kathryn Hesketh will focus on play during the preschool period.
What can research tell us about our weight? – 3 April, 6pm
Unit researchers Dr Amy Ahern and Professor Nick Wareham will join this live webinar showcasing what the NIHR Cambridge Biomedical Research Centre is doing to understand and treat obesity.
The full Cambridge Festival programme of events will be announced on 17th February, when you’ll be able to find who else to go and see!
Growing pains: health challenges from cradle to … avoiding an early grave
In the first British-based national survey of play in preschool-aged children our researchers found that by the age of two girls already play outside less than boys. This is important because compared to boys, girls are less physically active and more likely to have difficulties with their mental health as they get older.
A series of interviews undertaken during the Covid-19 pandemic with young people living in socioeconomically deprived communities highlights the impact the pandemic had on their mental and physical health.
Research has found that when young adults start working, their daily physical activity increases sharply but their sleep decreases, which can be concerning since between the ages of 16 to 30 years is when many risk factors for long term diseases can begin to develop.
In the GLoW study, Unit researchers set out to test whether a new programme that combines personalised diabetes education with a commercial behavioural weight management programme could improve health outcomes for people with a recent diagnosis of type 2 diabetes.
Unhealthy highstreets and broken plates: fixing our food environments and systems
Creating communities and environments which foster healthy behaviours is becoming a greater priority, although there are still barriers and challenges to overcome.
Late last year, the House of Lords Food Diet and Obesity Committee published a report, noted there is no one silver bullet to end the UK’s public health emergency of obesity and diet-related disease, and made a series of recommendations to develop a new comprehensive food strategy. The Unit’s Professor Martin White acted as a Specialist Advisor to the Committee, and our researchers also submitted written evidence that was cited by the Committee in their report.
Evidencing the UK’s public health crisis is The Broken Plate 2025, the Food Foundation’s annual flagship report. This year, the report is focusing on the cracks within the UK’s food system and demonstrating how it and food environments have led us into a national health crisis, with children and low-income households suffering the severest health consequences. Dr Jody Hoenink, Dr Thomas Burgoine, and Professor Jean Adams from the Unit contributed key information on changes in food prices to the Food Foundation’s report.
A new report by the youth activist charity Bite Back reveals the number of outlets that the top 10 out-of-home food chains have in England, Scotland and Wales increased by 59% in the decade from 2014 to 2024. Dr Jody Hoenink led the analysis.
Alongside the Bite Back report, the Obesity Health Alliance (OHA) is supporting research and practical measures to reform the UK’s planning system to protect children’s health by preventing new hot food takeaways from opening where children learn and play, or where they may affect the health of local communities. An example of practical measures that can be taken was developed by Dr Thomas Burgoine and colleagues. The updated National Planning Policy Framework (for England) published by the UK Government also includes takeaway management zones around schools. Written for Nesta, Nourishing Britain: a political manual for improving the nation’s health was authored by visiting scientist Dr Dolly van Tulleken and Henry Dimbleby.
A tale of many cities
When it comes to our health, is it the best of times or the worst of times for urban living?
The Chief Medical Officer’s Annual Report 2024 focuses on the challenges and opportunities living in a city can bring; and explores what we can do to improve health in cities.
The report cites several recent Unit publications:
- Cycling behaviour in 17 countries across 6 continents: levels of cycling, who cycles, for what purpose, and how far?
- Children’s experiences of the journey between home and school: A qualitative synthesis using meta-ethnography
- Design effects of cycle infrastructure changes: An exploratory analysis of cycle levels
- Socio-economic dietary inequalities in UK adults: an updated picture of key food groups and nutrients from national surveillance data
Also, cited in the report is Unit-led research about the Soft Drinks Industry Levy and it is linked to a fall in child hospital admissions for tooth extraction in the UK.
Health-Driven Design for Cities (HD4) was launched in December 2024. The groundbreaking Singapore-based research collaboration seeks to discover how best to design and reimagine urban environments that enhance the health of their residents.
The Urban Burden of Disease Estimation for Policy making (UBDPolicy) project is an EU-funded initiative aimed at enhancing the estimation of health impacts and socio-economic costs or benefits associated with air quality, noise, urban green space availability, heat and temperature, physical activity, and inequity across nearly 1,000 European cities.
Congratulations to GDAR network member, Dr Gabriel Okello, on winning the Cambridge Award for Research Impact and Engagement in the ECR category for his work applying multidisciplinary, collaborative approaches to tackle air pollution in rapidly urbanising African cities. Gabriel’s award-winning project catalysed Uganda’s first-ever Air Quality Standards, advancing policy and public health, and driving transformative growth in the e-mobility sector and battery-swapping stations.
Blogging, vlogging, and podding
Through a series of blogs, videos, and The Confidence Interval Podcast, we explore the research happening at the Unit. Hearing from our researchers as they talk science, people, and population health.
- From shelf to health, the global impact of ultra processed food – a short video by Divya Bhagtani, which was shortlisted for the 2024 MRC Max Perutz Award
- Shayan Aryannezhad shares how the combined associations of diet quality and physical activity can reduce cardiometabolic and mortality risk
- Professors Jean Adams and Martin White, commented in the University of Cambridge’s news article, Are weight loss jabs the solution to the obesity crisis?
- Ghufran Al Sayed talks about how she moved from medicine to public health, with a focus on adolescent wellbeing
- The hidden cost of school uniforms is that they coud be stopping young girls from leading an active lifestyle, and contributing to the difference in movement habits between girls and boys. Authors are Dr Mairead Ryan and Dr Esther van Sluijs.
- Professor Nita Forouhi featured in BBC Radio 4’s podcast series, Sliced Bread. Nina was on to talk about the best cooking oils for our health?
- In The Confidence Interval – taking away the takeaways for healthy neighbourhoods, Dr Tom Burgoine shares how creating healthy neighbourhoods can help people make healthy choices.
- In The Confidence Interval – from Nutritionist to Early Career Researcher, Dr Cara Ruggiero discusses the importance of knowing “your why” and lays out her personal map for working to solve the issues of poor nutrition.
- You can subscribe to our podcast on Apple Podcasts, Buzzsprout, Spotify, and YouTube.
Vacancies
Data Scientist (Fixed Term)
The MRC Epidemiology Unit is offering an exciting opportunity for a Data Scientist to join a vibrant research group and contribute to important research on understanding how children’s physical activity and travel patterns change as a result of environmental and policy interventions.
- Closing date 18 February 2025
- Full details
Our latest publications
The MRC Epidemiology Unit is committed to Open Access and to making our research more accessible, equitable, transparent and reproducible.
We aim for all MRC Epidemiology Unit-led papers to be fully available through Open Access as we continue to break down any barriers to knowledge.
You can find all publications from the MRC Epidemiology Unit on our Publications Database: https://publications.mrc-epid.cam.ac.uk/
You can search by journal, year, study, programme, Unit author, and keywords in the title and abstract.
About epigram
epigram is the newsletter for everyone interested in work happening at the MRC Epidemiology Unit, University of Cambridge.
We welcome your views on it. Email us at comms@mrc-epid.cam.ac.uk
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