CCNH announces funding for three new studies in child health
By
Vitaly Kazakov
The Centre for Child Nutrition & Health (CCNH) announced three new grants supporting research projects in child health promotion and disease prevention. The new grants are part of The Hospital for Sick Children’s Centre for Healthy Active Kids 2015 EAT, PLAY, THINK! Catalyst Grant program. In total, nine new projects received grants of $25,000 each.
Several of the Centre’s core and affiliated researchers will benefit from the announced funding. Robert Bandsma’s team received CCNH funding to study long-term metabolic effects caused by severe malnutrition.
Additionally, Patricia Parkin, Nav Persaud, Catherine Birken and Jonathon Maguire received a CCNH-sponsored EAT, PLAY, THINK! grant to develop an early childhood iron deficiency risk stratification tool. Finally, a team of researchers including Jill Hamilton, Catherine Birken and Michael Coons received a grant to study development of a smartphone app for personalized behavioural and lifestyle management aimed at adolescents with obesity.
The EAT, PLAY, THINK! Catalyst Grants provide early stage funding for innovative ideas spanning disease prevention and treatment, clinical, basic science, health services and policy research. The grants support novel and emerging research ideas that would not receive funding through other agencies. A major focus of these grants is creation of new collaborations and building capacity among grantees.
“Our Centre is delighted to offer funding to these innovative research projects through the EAT, PLAY, THINK! Catalyst grant program,” said Harvey Anderson, the Centre’s executive director and professor in the Department of Nutritional Sciences. “It is incredible to see the diversity of research questions and the caliber of experts who are working on answering them. We look forward to hearing about their findings and further facilitating new collaborations to advance childhood health world-wide.”
