News

GDAR and UN-Habitat present a hybrid networking session at the World Urban Forum 2022:

Increasing Urban Resilience in Low-and-Middle Income Countries Using Transdisciplinary Approaches

29 June, 14.30 ‐ 16.00 (CEST)

Room 1 , ICC Multifunction Hall, World Urban Forum, Katowice, Poland

• World Urban Forum event information can be found here.
• Hybrid Participation. All online participants need to register to WUF 11 to be able to participate virtually via the WUF11 mobile or web app

In this article originally published in The Conversation, Dr Tolullah Oni and Dr Camaren Peter discuss new research on the role that social media played in driving public engagement with Covid-19 health measures in Lagos, Nigeria, and lessons for responses to future crises.

In times of crisis, it is especially crucial that governments share accurate, up to date information with their citizens. Social media can play an important role in disseminating urgent information.

At its simplest, for instance, it allows people to mark themselves as “safe” after natural disasters such as earthquakes, floods, tsunamis, or during terrorist attacks and insurgencies.

Social media platforms can also be used to share critically important information about disaster management. And it’s a powerful tool for authorities to tackle misinformation and disinformation that may arise.

International research network aims to counter the triple threat to health

The Global Diet and Activity Research Network (GDAR) has launched an ambitious four-year research programme funded by the NIHR Global Health Research initiative. The programme is looking at how the ‘syndemic’ of urbanisation and climate change is influencing diet and physical activity and their related non-communicable diseases. A syndemic, from ‘synergistic epidemic’, is a situation where simultaneous epidemics and risks interact to intensify the burden of disease.  

GDAR is a research network across seven countries on three continents. It is working in Cameroon, South Africa, Kenya and Jamaica, as well as collaborating with UN-Habitat, and Universities in Brazil, Nigeria and the UK.

The GDAR Network is building on its recently completed first phase of research, which explored how policy, community and commercial systems shape diet and physical activity environments and behaviours in cities in low- and middle-income countries. This latest phase of research – named GDAR Spaces in recognition of the importance of physical, economic and cultural spaces in shaping our health – has a particular focus on how climate change and rapid urbanisation interact with the built and food environment.

Professor Vicki Lambert from the University of Cape Town’s (UCT) and GDAR has been part of spearheading the African Academic Consortium on Physical Activity for Health, which has released two policy briefs for government about physical activity.

COVID-19 has highlighted the need for a multi-faceted national plan for physical activity to underpin health development.  Some of the diseases that increase the risk of individuals with COVID-19 being hospitalised or dying are the same lifestyle-related diseases associated with being physically inactive. These include diabetes, hypertension, and obesity.

Lambert, from UCT’s Research Centre for Health through Physical Activity, Lifestyle and Sports (HPALS), is spearheading the African Academic Consortium on Physical Activity for Health, with Associate Professor Rowena Naidoo from the University of KwaZulu-Natal’s College of Health Sciences.

GDAR researchers have been involved in a range of work in response to the COVID-19 pandemic.

COVID-19 prevention information translated into several widely spoken African languages

An Engage Africa Foundation translation team led by Ebele Mogo has translated information on preventing the transmission of COVID-19 into 19 languages spoken across Africa.

How will changes in the food environment affect communities in Kenya?

This article is an extract from epigram, the newsletter of the MRC Epidemiology Unit, which coordinates GDAR. Read the full issue of epigram 2019 here.

Non-communicable diseases such as type 2 diabetes, heart disease and cancers are a global challenge. In fact they are more common in many low and middle income countries than in high income countries. In the lower income nations, most people with these diseases are of working age, which can leave families destitute and harm development.

The MRC Epidemiology Unit is playing its part in addressing this challenge through its coordination of the Global Diet and Activity Research Group and Network (GDAR). This is a partnership between the Unit and researchers in Kenya, Cameroon, South Africa and the Caribbean, funded through the NIHR Global Health Research initiative.

The Global Burden of Disease study, which tracked trends in consumption of 15 dietary factors from 1990 to 2017 in 195 countries, and is now published in The Lancet, finds that people in almost every region of the world could benefit from rebalancing their diets to eat optimal amounts of various foods and nutrients.

The study estimates that one in five deaths globally – equivalent to 11 million deaths – are associated with poor diet, and diet contributes to a range of chronic diseases in people around the world. In 2017, more deaths were caused by diets with too low amounts of foods such as whole grains, fruit, nuts and seeds than by diets with high levels of foods like trans fats, sugary drinks, and high levels of red and processed meats.

The authors say that their findings highlight the urgent need for coordinated global efforts to improve diet, through collaboration with various sections of the food system and policies that drive balanced diets.

Press Release issued when the GDAR funding was announced in July 2017.

The MRC Epidemiology Unit has been awarded funding by the National Institute for Health Research (NIHR) for a new international research partnership to help combat poor diet and physical inactivity in order to reduce the risk of non-communicable diseases.

The Global Diet and Activity Research Group and Network (GDAR) will carry out research to help prevent non-communicable diseases such as type 2 diabetes, heart disease and cancer, which are a major and growing cause of death and disability in low and middle income countries. Two of the most important causes behind the increases in these diseases are unhealthy diets and a lack of physical activity, both of which are associated with the rapid economic development that is taking place in these countries.