Experts in Sport: Improving global child health and nutrition

In this episode of the Experts in Sport podcast, Paula Griffiths (Professor of Population Health) and Emily Rousham (Professor of Global Public Health) sit down with host Martin Foster to discuss their research, focusing on the health and nutrition challenges that lower and middle-income countries experience.

The two, alongside their international research partners Dr Elizabeth Kimani-Murage and Rossina Pareja -, discuss recent case study projects in Kenya and Peru respectively. Together, they dissect their process of identifying each country’s barriers in terms of child health and mortality rates, as well as expressing the positive impact the research had across the two communities. 

Prof Griffiths and Prof Rousham also highlight future research plans within the field. 

Paula Griffiths is Professor of Population Health and Associate Dean for Research and Innovation (job share) School of Sport, Exercise and Health Sciences. She is also honorary Professor in the School of Clinical Medicine, University of Witwatersrand, South Africa. Her research focuses on inequalities in maternal and child health outcomes in low- and middle-income countries and community strategies to reduce these.  

As a Social Scientist she brings expertise to global development projects that facilitates the understanding of the social contexts in which people live and how these influence their behaviours and uptake of interventions designed to improve nutrition and health in populations living in resource poor settings. 

Emily Rousham is a Professor of Global Public Health. Her research includes maternal and child health, breastfeeding and complementary feeding practices, public health nutrition and strategies to tackle emerging global challenges such as the double burden of malnutrition and antimicrobial resistance. She has worked with partners in low- and middle-income countries including Bangladesh, Ghana, Kenya, South Africa and Peru and undertaken work on behalf of WHO, FAO and UNICEF.  

Listeners of the podcast can subscribe and download the latest episode by visiting iTunes, Spotify, and TuneIn. All subscribers will receive an alert once new episodes are published. 

The Experts in Sport podcast is a regular series that brings together experts from across Loughborough University with external thought leaders to discuss the latest research and hot topics in sport and academia with new episodes launched regularly. 

ENDS 

Notes for editors

Press release reference number: 23/101

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