The University of Southampton

Innovative LifeLab project to improve the health of young people hits major milestone

An innovative education programme that teaches young people about the science behind health messages to improve children’s health has welcomed its 10,000th student to the project.

LifeLab’s approach is based on giving young people the chance to make better choices about their own health by discovering for themselves how their lifestyle choices can affect them, and their children.

LifeLab educators train science teachers in schools across the region to deliver a fully resourced module through the science curriculum that explores conditions like diabetes, heart disease and obesity and risk factors associated with them.

The programme includes activities in a purpose-built teaching and laboratory space at University Hospital Southampton linked to the National Institute for Health Research Southampton Biomedical Research Centre.  Students spend the day in a unique clinical environment assessing their own health through a series of activities including using ultrasound, blood pressure monitors, extracting their DNA and learning vital skills including CPR.

Established in 2008 as a joint project between the University of Southampton and University Hospital Southampton, the project’s success resulted in the dedicated LifeLab facility that was officially opened by HRH The Countess of Wessex in 2014.

Almost five years on to the day, LifeLab staff celebrated reaching the 10,000 student milestone with the visit by students from Swanmore College.lifelab10000_swanmore

Year 8 student Arthur said: “It has been a really interesting day and I have enjoyed doing the activities, particularly with the DNA. 10,000 is a really big number and it is good to be a part of that.”

Programme lead Dr Kathryn Woods-Townsend, said:  “LifeLab was established on the principle of putting our trust in young people to make good choices around their own physical and mental health, and that now has been experienced by more than 10,000 students.

“It has been fantastic to see our community grow, not only through our schools but also through our partnerships with public health initiatives. We hope that we can continue to build on our success and that our work further improves health outcomes for future generations.”

Paula Head, chief executive of UHS, said: “LifeLab really is leading the way nationally in raising awareness of healthy living among young people in a dedicated health teaching space and for 10,000 students to have experienced the project so far is phenomenal.

“I am extremely proud of everyone involved and see this as an important part our future at UHS, particularly as it is in line with a key goal for our teams of living healthy lives.”

Professor Mark Spearing, the University’s President and Vice-Chancellor (Interim) said:

“On behalf of the University, I want to congratulate our colleagues in LifeLab who are working so effectively to improve the lives and lifestyles of so many young people in Southampton and the wider region.

“Reaching the milestone of welcoming 10,000 students to experience the unique learning environment of LifeLab is quite an achievement and is further evidence of the reach and scope of the team’s successful partnerships with schools, colleges and health professionals. The work they’re doing today is vital to the future health and well-being of so many students and their families for now and for generations to come.”

LifeLab teams up with Southampton Football Club to deliver public health initiative

 

In this blog we have already spoken about our great partnership with Southampton City Council in delivering the Royal Society of Public Health (RSPH) initiative  – Young Health Champions.

Now are are hugely excited to be teaming up with the Saints Foundation, the official charity of Southampton Football Club, to ensure more young people benefit from this fantastic qualification.

The RSPH developed the Young Health Champions qualification, which supports young people to train as peer health mentors. The young people develop the skills and confidence to design and lead a health promotion campaign that is relevant to their communities.

As a long-time supporter of the programme, LifeLab successfully secured RSPH Centre status for delivering this qualification in July 2017 and the opportunity has already been taken up by students across Hampshire including at Thornden school. As the most recent students to embark on the YHC scheme, they are currently putting together their own health campaigns to showcase to their peers.

Kathryn Woods-Townsend, Programme Manager at LifeLab, said: “We have successfully delivered the Young Health Champions programme to young people from across Southampton for a number of years. Both Saints Foundation and Southampton Football Club are organisations known throughout our city and our region and we look forward to using this partnership to engage more young people around their health and wellbeing”

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This new partnership offers an exceptional opportunity for more students in Southampton’s schools to work with Saints Foundation’s Community Champions in their schools to achieve this qualification.

Ben Keens, Community Champion Coordinator at Saints Foundation, said: “We are looking forward to training young people from across Southampton in the Young Health Champions programme. This project represents an exciting addition to the work we already do to support the health and wellbeing of individuals from across Southampton and the surrounding areas.”

For the schools taking part in the programme, their participation will also enable them to achieve the Southampton City Council’s Healthy High 5 award. This award is a school-based health and wellbeing initiative led by Southampton City Council and Solent NHS Trust.

Mia Wren, Head of Integrated Early Help and Prevention at Solent NHS Trust, said: “The Healthy High 5 Award has been designed to make a positive impact on the health and wellbeing of all pupils whose schools are taking part in the award. It targets key public health concerns affecting young people, including healthy eating, smoking cessation and the consumption of fizzy and energy drinks. We are delighted to be working with partner agencies across Southampton to educate young people about these important public health issues.”

After the Young Health Champions have completed their training, they will showcase their activities and campaigns at a celebration event in July, organised by Saints Foundation. The showcase will be attended by local and regional policy makers, organisations and influencers in Southampton, giving the Young Health Champions an opportunity to make their voice heard by decision makers in their city.

Aaron Mansfield, Young People’s Wellbeing Project Manager at RSPH, said: “We are delighted to be announcing this project with Saints Foundation, LifeLab and Southampton City Council. It is a strong partnership working across different sectors, providing young people with the skills and knowledge to protect their own health and support the wellbeing of their peers.”

 

 

 

 

Southampton students collaborate in innovative research to promote healthy lifestyles

Students and staff at two secondary schools in Southampton have taken part in cutting-edge health research aimed at promoting healthy lifestyles in young people.

Science classes at Oasis Academy Mayfield and Oasis Academy Lord’s Hill, Southampton were chosen to take part in an exciting new study programme called EACH-B (Engaging Adolescents in Behaviour Change) with LifeLab, a unique project that enables young people to make better choices about their lifestyles and health based on their own scientific enquiry.

Oasis Mayfield students take part in a LifeLab day
Oasis Mayfield students take part in a LifeLab day

The group of students took part in an assessment as part of a lesson about health which involved having their height and weight recorded, along with completing questionnaires about their diet, lifestyle and wellbeing.

As part of the project, students were asked to wear a watch-like activity tracker for a week, complete a log of their sleep pattern and other activities during their usual day. These assessments will take place twice, four months apart.

David Spratt, the Director of Science at Oasis Academy Lord’s Hill, commented on the day, saying: “It was brilliant to host the EACH-B Research Team at Oasis Academy Lord’s Hill. It is a great opportunity for the students to be part of a real research project particularly around the relevant topic of the health behaviours.”

EACH-B aims to develop an intervention that motivates and supports teenagers to eat better and exercise more through participation in the LifeLab project, from teachers trained to support students to improve their diets and exercise, and by using a specially-designed, interactive smartphone app that involves friends and has game features.

Professor Mary Barker, the EACH-B Project Lead at the University of Southampton, commented: “Oasis Mayfield and Lord’s Hill Academies have been amazing partners in this project.  We could not be doing this ground-breaking piece of research without their support and enthusiasm.  Staff and students at both schools have been full of ideas and energy, and the students have been particularly brilliant in helping us find new ways of measuring and testing this intervention.”

Oasis Mayfield students measure up at LifeLab
Oasis Mayfield students measure up at LifeLab

Robert Forder, Principal of Oasis Academy Lord’s Hill, added: “We are extremely fortunate to be working with LifeLab on this exciting project.  This is part of the Academy’s commitment to provide a modern, world-class curriculum that allows our students to learn first-hand the science behind important health issues.”

LifeLab is based at University Hospital Southampton, and is a joint initiative of the University of Southampton’s School of Education and Faculty of Medicine along with the National Institute for Health Research Southampton Biomedical Research Centre.

LifeLab backs calls for resuscitation training in schools

LifeLab has welcomed calls for resuscitation training to be added to the school curriculum to help save more lives across the country.

Today marks Restart a Heart Day which draws attention to the importance of learning resuscitation skills.

Each year around 2,000 school children are taught vital lifesaving skills in the past year by participating in the LifeLab programme.

Students learning vital skills at LifeLab
Students learning vital skills at LifeLab

As part of the innovative education programme that teaches young people about the science behind health messages, students also take part in a session on CPR training. During their visit to the state of the art teaching space in Southampton.

Supported by Wessex heartbeat and the British Heart Foundation the sessions involve students being taught basic lifesaving skills by resuscitation officers from University Hospital Southampton Foundation Trust – where LifeLab is based.

Dawn Hargraves, a resuscitation officer at University Hospital Southampton NHS Foundation Trust, said cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR) “should be viewed as a life skill” which is “embedded from the outset”.

She said: “Unfortunately, as a nation, we have never put enough emphasis on the importance of CPR,” she said, speaking on behalf of the resuscitation services department. “It should be viewed as a life skill as it could be required at any time and in any situation, not just in hospitals.

“That is a feeling shared by clinicians in resuscitation services, emergency departments, intensive care units and across all emergency services as we all see the devastating results of CPR not being started by a bystander – it is a topic we all feel very passionate about.”

As part of the Restart a Heart initiative, students who are visiting LifeLab today (TUES)  will be involved in a public demonstration of resuscitation training in the front entrance of Southampton General Hospital.

Since it began, almost 9,000 students have taken part in the LifeLab programme, which is supported by the University of Southampton’s medicine and education schools with the teaching space at the National Institute for Health Research Biomedical Research Centre at University Hospital Southampton.

To read the full press release click here.

 

It’s not just about the kids

Our driving force at LifeLab is about improving the health of future generations. Much of our work, therefore , is focused on landing that message early.

The phrase ‘change the beginning and you change the whole story,” is a mantra that is not just what greets visitors to our purpose-built labs at University Hospital Southampton, but it embodies our whole reason for doing what we do. However, we are not just all about the kids.

A great big part of our work is all about the professional development of our teachers, scientists and researchers – the role models to whom our students look and whose work and teaching inspires them. We know the effectiveness of allowing students to discover for themselves the impact of their own lifestyle choices, but we know it can’t work in isolation. Having a curriculum in school that is delivered by inspirational teachers and meeting people who have made their life’s work all about advancing our knowledge of improving health, are key components of our success.

As a result LifeLab not only delivers learning for young people, but we also teach the teachers. Later this month sees an example of this type of professional development in the form of our Meet the Scientists training.

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The aim is to develop researchers and scientists to be able to explain what they do to a younger generation, inspire with their words and wow with their work. Standing up in front of a class of teenagers can be a daunting prospect but our training gives our volunteers the skills and confidence to do just that. Once trained, those volunteers form a vital part of our LifeLab experience as students get to meet them as part of their day of learning in the labs. Students have the unique opportunity to sit down, listen and ask questions to real-life scientists which can be a really powerful, and sometime life-changing, experience for young people.

It’s not just a one-way street. The feedback we get from our scientists also shows what a difference it has made to them professionally. Recent we asked our existing volunteers how they felt about their time with the students.

Feedback included:

“We have a genuine two-way conversation, a chance to discuss the wide range of work we do, but more importantly to listen and understand people’s perceptions of that work.”

 

“Speaking to the purest young minds helps me clarify my thoughts around my research and the process throws up questions I hadn’t anticipated. Furthermore, it’s great fun too.”

 

“When you are truly passionate about your work it is a pleasure to share it with others. When I was at school we did not have work experience or resourses like LifeLab. There is a whole word of opportunities in STEM just waiting to be discovered, you just need someone to show you the way.”

 

Science has a reputation for being too complicated and boring and it is important to take science out of the lab so school students know how amazing science is.”

Places are still available on the Meet the Scientist training that takes place at LifeLab, Level D, South Academic Block, Southampton General Hospital, on Friday 19 October from 9am to 3pm. Email lifelab@soton.ac.uk to find out more.

 

Celebrating a week of achievement

Well what a week we have had! We felt a huge sense of achievement as the LifeLab team successfully completed their #LifeLabGoesWalking challenge to mark National Fitness Day.

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We decided to practice what we preach and set ourselves the goal of walking to the furthest school to have signed up to the LifeLab project – which turned out to be in Birmingham!

We gave ourselves a week to do it, combining all our collective steps, captured on LifeLab fitness trackers, the same ones we use in our Early LifeLab programme to show how many active minutes are being notched up.

As we set off, our team had some thoughts about how they felt about the 130 mile challenge. Donna, who delivers the LifeLab teaching, said: “Excited! It’s a good thing I have a conveniently timed half marathon while we are completing the challenge.”

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Hannah, our Early LifeLab lead said: “I’m looking forward to putting all the steps I do running after a toddler to good use!”

Kate, lead for attainment for LifeLab, said she was: “Really excited to see how far we can go! The school run will be put to good use!” Lisa Bagust, who also delivers LifeLab teaching, said her fitbit was charged and ready to go!

Claire our technician said she would be mostly dancing her way through it, while Sian, who supports with communications, was just hoping her knees held out for the duration. Kath, our programme leader found a way to combine the steps with expanding her mind. She said: “I am looking forward to having a chance to listen to Sarah Jayne Blakemore’s fabulous book ‘Inventing ourselves; the secret life of the teenage brain’ whilst I’m walking up to Brum!”maptwitter1

We actually made it in record time to Nelson Mandela Primary School, who were also midway through their own activity challenge. They had set themselves the goal of combining the miles they accumulated through their mile a day initiative to make it down to Southampton and visit us here in LifeLab.

We must have virtually past them somewhere on the A34!!

As we had exceeded our own walking expectations we thought rather than call it a day, we would simply extend the challenge to take us around Birmingham and visit some more schools who have also recently signed up to the LifeLab programme.

The City of Birmingham (COB) school campuses are spread out across the city and gave us another 26 miles to add to our total before we started heading back to Southampton, which we managed to hit bang on time in the middle of National Fitness Day last Wednesday. We celebrated with a mass workout joined by our visiting students from Havant Academy who threw themselves into the challenge and gave us some much needed support as we entered the home straight.

The day was a great celebration of the value of fitness and activity and one that we wholeheartedly embraced by the LifeLab community.selfie-board-team

We’re off! Why we were inspired to ‘walk’ to Birmingham

Today the LifeLab team embarks on an energetic challenge in support of National Fitness Day. Read about how we came up with the idea, and what will inspire us to keep up the step count

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“I’ve got an idea,” said Kath.

It’s the way all the best conversations start in the LifeLab office. Albeit this one began on email as inspiration was striking at a conference some 80 miles away.

To be fair, you would be hard pushed not to be spurred into action if you were anywhere near the ukactive National Summit event. Speaker after speaker took to the stage calling for more action to promote healthy and active lifestyles.

 

Levels of inactivity combined with poor diet and changes in how we socialise have combined to build a worrying picture of our nation’s health, both now and in the future.

Allowing young people to investigate their own lifestyles and make informed choices through scientific discovery is what underpins the work of LifeLab, so the message that we could all take up the challenge of leading healthier lifestyles really it home. It also hit Kath.

“I think we need to do something for National Fitness Day,” she continued.

National Fitness Day is, as it suggests, a country-wide movement to try and get the public doing just that – moving!

It is a chance to highlight the role physical activity plays in improving health and encompasses all manner of activity from organised classes, to individual challenges and mass events.

Before long our support for this event had resulted in a plan to ‘walk’ to the school that was the furthest away from LifeLab. By wearing activity trackers we would, as a team, combine our steps over a number of days to cover the distance required.

As it turned out that school, Nelson Mandela Primary, was in Birmingham. Brilliant. A quick calculation concluded we needed to give ourselves at least a week to rack up enough steps to cover the equivalent of the 130 miles it would take to get there.

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And so it begins. Today is the day we start counting those steps, with the aim of reaching our destination in time for National Fitness Day on Wednesday 26 September. Finding ways to substitute car journeys for walking, taking the stairs instead of the lift, or just heading out for a stroll around the block will be the lifestyle of choice for the next seven days. Wish us luck!

 

Keep track of our progress as we march towards the midlands by following this blog here, and the team on social media. Find us @LifeLabSoton under #LifeLabGoesWalking as part of the #Fitness2Me campaign.

Nothing about us, without us

Dr Kathryn Woods-Townsend, programme manager for LifeLab and member of the ukactive Kids Council, joined hundreds of other delegates for the ukactive National Summit event where the call to action was very clear.

 

This week saw more than 700 decision makers and influencers gather at the QEII Centre in London with one thing in mind – to get the UK more active.

The ukactive National Summit saw the launch of their latest report. Alongside a report on healthy aging was the publication of Generation Inactive 2.0, which painted a worrying picture of what our future could be if we did not address the health and fitness of younger generations.

Latest statistics revealed how just one in four boys and one in five girls in England do the recommended 60 minutes of activity each day while figures from Ofcom report that children aged five to 15 spend nearly two hours a day online during the week and nearly three hours a day at the weekend.

But the mood in the room was one of conviction – we can do something about raising inactivity levels with a united and determined multi-agency effort.

A very clear message also came out of the day – we should be doing less of telling young people what to do, and more of listening to them if we are going to find a solution. The theme of the report: ‘Nothing about us, without us’ resonated throughout the event.

The call to action came from all political sides, from all ages and from all organisations committed to improving the health of the nation.

The summit included some impassioned speakers; from Baroness Tanni Grey Thompson  urging the government to include physical activity at policy level, to Tom Watson MP describing his remarkable weight loss and reversal of Type 2 diabetes through diet and exercise. But none were more inspiring than student Rahela who made the very clear point; young people need to have a voice – involve us, don’t lecture us.

Rahela gives some excellent advice to the summit
Rahela gives some excellent advice to the summit

She urged people in the room to consider how they deal with young people spending too much time on a screen. “Don’t try to stop screen time, but use technology to our advantage.” That really struck a chord with the team from LifeLab as that is the precise approach being adopted for the EACH-B project.

The project, funded by the National Institutes of Health Research, is currently developing an application to run on mobile devices that combines digital platforms to improve the health of younger generations. EACH-B was also praised in the Generation Inactive 2.0 report, for how it was attempting to capitalise on the increasing use of digital technology by younger people and use it to sustain engagement in activity and fitness.

Delegates came away from the day incredibly inspired to redouble efforts in making change happen. There was a feeling of momentum too as we look ahead to National Fitness Day on 26 September, as a real chance for the country to get behind an initiative that will shine a light on just how important getting active is to the health of our generation and those to come.

Welcoming peerage and pupils to LifeLab

“Children do not learn in the classroom alone, they have to come and experience things for themselves, and LifeLab gives them the opportunity to do that.”

Those were the words of Lord Patel when he visited our state of the art education space at University Hospital Southampton ahead of being presented with his honorary degree from the University of Southampton.

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Lord Patel (far right) with Hamble students, Kathryn Woods-Townsend (far left) and visitors from the University from Southampton

He was invited to have a look around our labs where we have welcomed more than 8,000 students so far this year to discover how their lifestyle choices can impact their health now and in the future.

With a wealth of experience social care and public health, Lord Patel said he was very impressed with the programme that sees teenagers carry out a series of hands-of experiences which examines their own health as part of a science-based module that their teachers have been supported in delivering in school.

Describing his thoughts on the project, which sits under the National Institute for Health Research and part of the University of Southampton, Lord Patel said: “It is extremely interesting and one that I see no reason why it can’t be rolled out further. It is so important that young people get the chance to have this practical experience so they can understand why taking care of their health is important.”

During his visit Lord Patel also spoke to visiting students from Hamble School who described the sort of activities they had been doing.img_5779

“Coming to a hospital and seeing what goes on and the people who work here is a great thing for them to be experiencing,” added Lord Patel.

LifeLab programme lead Dr Kathryn Woods-Townsend said: “This was a great opportunity to showcase LifeLab to someone who has a wealth of experience in the area of social and public health. It was wonderful to hear how enthusiastic he was about our approach.”

 

 

 

 

There are few places better to be than Southampton for clinical research

 LifeLab is among a number of projects that has helped boost Southampton’s standing as a centre for clinical research excellence.

According to the National Institute for Health Research (NIHR) Clinical Research Network data patients at Southampton’s teaching hospitals have some of the best access in the country to the latest medical advances.

More than 18,000 people took part in clinical research studies at University Hospital Southampton NHS Foundation Trust during 2017/18, making it the one of the top four centres for recruitment in England.

In addition, the National Institute for Health Research (NIHR) Clinical Research Network data also placed Southampton in the top 10 for volume of studies overall at 413, as well as the top 10 for commercial studies with 93.

“We are delighted to be among the top four recruiters to clinical trials as it demonstrates the role we play in bringing new treatments and technology to the frontline in the NHS,” said Christine McGrath, director of research and development at UHS.

“It is a great achievement for the organisation to be ranked among the country’s top performers in both volume and recruitment to clinical trials and is a clear indication to our patients that we are committed to remaining at the forefront of developments in medicine nationally.”

More than £100m has been invested in research across UHS in collaboration with the University of Southampton over the past 10 years alone.

This includes the NIHR Southampton Biomedical Research Centre, which specialises in respiratory medicine, critical care, nutrition, microbial science, data science and behavioural sciences, and the NIHR Southampton Clinical Research Facility, a dedicated centre for experimental medicine.

In addition, the NIHR Experimental Cancer Medicine Centre forms part of the Southampton Cancer Research UK Centre, while funding also covers LifeLab along with the Wessex Investigational Sciences Hub, the Centre for Cancer Immunology, the MRC Lifecourse Epidemiology Unit and the Health Sciences Research Facility.

The city has recorded a number of significant discoveries, including studies which showed chronic diseases in adults, such as diabetes, heart disease and cancer, may be prevented by early interventions in nutrition, diet and lifestyle of pregnant women, infants and children.