The importance of investing in early intervention health initiatives was the theme of this year’s Wessex Public Health Conference, so it was no surprise that the LifeLab team turned out in force.
Missing no opportunity to champion the work we do in empowering young people to make healthy choices that will have impact throughout their lives, we gave two oral presentations, had two posters on display and contributed to the opening and closing sessions.
Delegates heard from keynote speaker Dr Mary Barker about the EACH-B project as a way of engaging teenagers with their health. This highlighted the importance of involving young people in the public health decisions that affect them and raising awareness that this group needed to be listened to and invested in. Dr Wendy Lawrence also took part in the closing panel, highlighting the importance of promoting good health and wellbeing across the population rather than prevention of ill health.
The event was staged at the St Mary’s Stadium and saw more than 200 delegates take part in the day, showcasing national and local research with speakers on health psychology, genomics and prioritisation in public health.
Polly Langdon presented the findings of the BUPA Randomised Control Trial in a talk entitled: LifeLab Southampton: Improving scientific literacy as a tool for increasing health literacy in teenagers – a pilot cluster-randomised controlled trial while Donna Lovelock presented a summary of the work we are doing to deliver the Youth Health Champions Qualification in Southampton in a talk entitled: Youth Health Champions: hearing the pupil voice for promoting health and wellbeing through peer mentoring.
Both were very well received by the audience with some thought provoking questions about the data collection and how we can more widely publicise and engage students in what we do.
The team walked away from the event as ‘award winners’ have scooped the prize for Best Poster at the conference.
Hannah Davey’s creation entitled: Understanding healthy choices through scientific enquiry: a primary school-based intervention to support knowledge translation and behaviour change (pictured below) wowed the judges enough to win the top prize.
Polly also had a poster on display entitled: A systemic review of school-based educational interventions to improve diet, physical activity, BMI and body composition in adolescents (aged 10-19 years).
The take away message from the event was raising the importance of collaboration and ensuring we try and work in partnership and not in isolation, sharing ideas and good practice. It was a fantastic opportunity to see what others are working on in our region and a chance to network and develop new links for LifeLab.
