Achievements

The main previous research projects or topics are briefly outlined below along with the name of the staff involved and links to webpages with more details where relevant

 

    CO-CREATE Confronting obesity: Co-Creating policies with youth

    The overall aim of CO-CREATE is to reduce the prevalence of obesity among adolescents in Europe through policy actions to promote a healthier food and physical activity environment.

    CO-CREATE will contribute to the evidence and infrastructure for local and national policy changes to make healthy choices the easiest, most appealing, and preferred choices for adolescents across Europe, thus reducing the burden of obesity and related non-communicable diseases, both now and in the future.

    To achieve the overall aim, the project is organised into 10 work packages (WP1 – WP10) - see the CO-CREATE project webpage for details. The Public Health Nutrition group is involved in the activities in the following work packages; WP4, WP5 & WP6, and is leading WP7.

    • Nanna Lien, Navnit Kaur Greval, Eduard Romanenko, Mekdes Gebremariam, Helene Holbæk
    • Our CO-CREATE webpages for researchers and for youth

    TACKLE Tackling socioeconomic differences in weight development among youth

    The project aims to explore when, how and why socioeconomic differences in body weight develop during childhood. It will also investigate multilevel determinants of lifestyle behaviors and body weight among adolescents focusing on the role of the neighborhood food and activity environments. The project is based on Norwegian data and aim to do a cross-sectional survey in Oslo in the Spring of 2020.

    Sub-projects

    1. Secondary analyses of data from the Norwegian Mother and Child Cohort Study
    2. Qualitative survey among adolescents and their parents; development and validation of an environmental mapping tool (food and activity environments)
    3. Cross-sectional multilevel school-based survey among adolescents living in neighborhoods with different levels of affluence

    Policy Evaluation Network: Studying the factors influencing the implementation of the EU School Fruit and Vegetable scheme

    This project is part of Policy Evaluation Network (PEN). PEN is a consortium of 28 multi-disciplinary research centres from seven European countries with the goal to build capacity and to evaluate policy interventions regarding their level of impact on dietary, physical activity and sedentary behaviours at population level. This project belongs to WP6, and will review the evidence, collect information on implementation processes and develop a system dynamics model to evaluate the European School Fruit and Vegetable Scheme.

    The school as a public health actor: Effective tools for good implementation of guidelines for food and meals

    The aim of this project is to obtain knowledge about which measures can be implemented at national and local level in order to support the schools’ implementation of the national guidelines for food and meals, as well as what may promote good implementation at school level.

    In this project barriers and success factors for good implementation of the guideline for food and meals in primary school and after-school care will be identified through interviews with key persons at school and municipal level. Review of the literature on implementation theory and school interventions, as well as experiential knowledge, will be underlying. Tools to increase the degree of implementation will be developed and then tested in schools in a selection of counties. Schools in other counties will serve as control group. The effect of the implementation tools will be evaluated by means of questionnaires and statistical methods.

    • Jorunn Sofie Randby, Helene Holbæk, Biljana Meshkovska, Nanna Lien
    • The project webpage with more extensive description

    Early promotion of healthy dietary habits: Targeting kindergarten and home environments.

    The overall objective is to develop, implement and evaluate a theory and evidence-based intervention targeting vegetable consumption of 3-5 year olds through environmental changes in the kindergarten and the home in a three-armed, group-randomized controlled study design.

    The study is called “BRA-studien” and data were collected in 73 kindergartens in Vestfold in 2015-2017. There were 37 kindergartens receiving the intervention and 36 kindergartens serving as controls. 

    • Nanna Lien, Lene Frost Andersen, Anne Lene Kristiansen, Anne S. Himberg-Sundet and Mona Bjelland
    • Project webpage with more extensive description

    The Determinants of Diet and Physical Activity (DEDIPAC) Knowledge Hub (KH).

    DEDIPAC KH was the first a joint action of the Joint Programming Initiative A Healthy Diet for a Healthy Life (JPI HDHL).

    The main objective of DEDIPAC was to understand the determinants of dietary, physical activity and sedentary behaviours and to translate this knowledge into a more effective promotion of a healthy diet and physical activity.

    Professor Lien led thematic area 2: Determinants of dietary, physical activity and sedentary behaviours across the life course and in vulnerable groups. The overall objective of TA 2 was to provide the Pan-European research community with trans-disciplinary frameworks of determinants of dietary physical activity, sedentary behaviours and social inequalities, including best-practice methods to analyse data based on such frameworks and identification of gaps in current research.

    Within the work package of dietary behaviors the main output was the DETERMINANTS OF NUTRITION AND EATING – THE «DONE» FRAMEWORK.

    • Nanna Lien, Mekdes Gebremariam
    • JPI HDHL

    Family processes and health behaviours in adolescents

    The main objective was to evaluate school-based obesity prevention interventions by gender, socio-economic status and parental involvement, and to assess family processes influencing energy balance-related behaviours.

    Inconsistent effects of school-based obesity prevention interventions may be related to how different subgroups perceive them. Gender, socio-economic status and degree of parental involvement seem to influence the effects of interventions. To develop intervention strategies that improve energy balance-related behaviours, more research is needed investigating mediating factors in the family and home environment. Such factors may be parent-child communication and parenting practices as elements of parenting styles.

    • Mona Bjelland, Solveig Hausken, Lene Frost Andersen, Nanna Lien

    Social inequalities in adolescents' dietary behaviours and changes over time

    Through three longitudinal datasets from Oslo (age 15-18, UngHubro/Ung2004), Hordaland county (age 13-30, the Norwegian Longitudinal Health Behaviour Study) and Eastern Norway (age 12-13, The HEIA-study) we aimed to understand which factors influence the development of dietary behaviours and weight and whether these differ by socio-economic status (SES).

    In the EU-funded TEENAGE project the aim was to reanalyse dietary intervention studies to investigate if the effect differed by SES.

    • Nanna Lien, Knut-Inge Klepp, Margareta WandelMekdes Gebremariam

    Healthy weight development among adolescence

    European prevalences of overweight/obesity and factors influencing weight development was studied in the EU-funded HOPE project, whereas the projects Norwegian HEIA project and EU-funded ENERGY project aimed to change energy balance related behaviours of 11-12 year olds through school-based and family oriented strategies.

    • Knut-Inge Klepp, Nanna Lien, Mona Bjelland, May Grydeland and Sveinung Berntsen
    • Project webpage with more extensive description for the HEIA-project

    Promoting fruit and vegetables among school children

    A series of comprehensive school-based intervention studies aimed at 11-12 year olds has been conducted since 2001 starting with the Norwegian project  Frukt og grønt i 6! (Fruit and Vegetables Makes the Mark (FVMM)) followed by the EU-funded projects Pro Children and Pro Greens. In the Pro Children study computer tailoring to provide personalized advise was used with children for the first time and it has later been studied as a strategy on it's own.

    • Knut-Inge Klepp, Elling Bere, Mona Bjelland, Camilla Sandvik, Nanna LienChristina Hildonen

    Nutrition and health among immigrant infants and children.

    This project assesses diet and feeding practices of infants and children of immigrant parents born in Somalia and Iraq. It further explores the parents’ experiences in meeting the Norwegian health systems’ counselling practices regarding infant and child feeding.

    • Margareta Wandel, Marina de PoliLiv Elin Torheim

    Food habits, overweight/obesity and diabetes among ethnic minority groups in Oslo

    The project is based on quantitative data from Oslo Immigrant Health Study and on qualitative interview studies with women and diabetes patients. It is focussed on changes in food habits, overweight/obesity and weight dissatisfaction after migration, and the challenges encountered by both the immigrants and health personnel in the communication on diet and weight.

    •  Margareta Wandel

    A culturally adapted intervention study to prevent type 2 diabetes/metabolic syndrome among Pakistani immigrant women with main focus on nutrition

    The study is based on experience from the project above. It is focussed on the chain of potential changes after a culturally adapted intervention, from food perceptions and perceptions of risk factors for diabetes, intentions to make dietary changes, barriers to do so, and actual dietary changes, to changes in blood glucose and other components of the metabolic syndrome.

    •  Margareta WandelMarte K.R. Kjøllesdal

    The PREPARE project

    The main purpose of this EU funded research project is to develop interventions which are effective in reducing the spread of sexually transmitted diseases (including HIV) and unwanted pregnancies by changing sexual- and reproductive behaviours among adolescents in selected sites in Sub-Saharan Africa.

    • Knut-Inge Klepp, Sheri Bastien

    The LASH (Limpopo - Arusha School Health)

    Project aims at improving the evidence base for school-based adolescent health programs in Sub-Saharan African settings (South Africa and Tanzania). The project is the first attempt to do a group radomized trial to investigate the potential for a comprehensive, school-based program in improving the general health of adolescents.

    • Knut-Inge Klepp, Sheri Bastien, Arnfinn Helleve
    Published Feb. 25, 2011 3:09 PM - Last modified Jan. 24, 2024 9:06 PM