This week Hazel Inskip, Professor of Statistical Epidemiology and Deputy Director of the MRC Lifecourse Epidemiology Unit, gives her thoughts on how we have started 2018 on a high and what the next year might hold for LifeLab.

We’ve started the year with exciting things happening at LifeLab – our state-of-the-art teaching laboratory dedicated to improving adolescent health by giving school students opportunities to learn first-hand the science behind the health messages.
Steve Brine MP, Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Public Health and Primary Care visited us and expressed his enthusiasm, and, wonderfully, he was so taken with it that he extolled its virtues during a Parliamentary debate.
LifeLab and its ‘little sister’ Early LifeLab, which takes the work into primary schools, are getting such a lot of interest now and the excitement is building.

I’m proud to be working on EACh-B, which extends LifeLab even further. These extensions include support from teachers whom we train to enable the students to maintain their commitment to improve their lifestyles, plus a digital intervention with gaming elements.
For me, I’m learning a whole new vocabulary about digital game development – six months ago I’d never heard of a game jam, now I mention them frequently and two have already been held in Southampton this year to help develop this component of EACh-B. If we can find a way of helping adolescents to improve their health behaviours we should impact on their future health and that of their children.

I love some of the things I pick up on Twitter, and think the following article that I saw is a good message to take with us into 2018.
It was a piece in Nature which was called “Should we steer clear of the winner-takes-all approach?” and was all about how kindness is needed in science (and, I would add, in any walk of life) and how we achieve more if we work together rather than try to put others down.
It reported on a group of scientists in New Zealand who held a ‘Kindness in Science’ workshop last month, with the aim of kick-starting a movement that will offer a kinder, gentler and more inclusive scientific culture. The group’s mantra is “Everyone here is smart and kind — don’t distinguish yourself by being otherwise.”
A message for us all perhaps?