ObjectivesTo explore optimal infant feeding and care practices and their drivers within the British-Bangladeshi population of East London, UK, as an exemplar to inform development of a tailored, coadapted participatory community intervention.DesignQualitative community-based participatory research.SettingCommunity and children’s centres and National Health Service settings within Tower Hamlets, London, UK.Participants141 participants completed the community study including: British-Bangladeshi mothers, fathers, grandmothers and grandfathers of infants and young children aged 6–23 months, key informants and lay community members from the British-Bangladeshi population of Tower Hamlets, and health professionals working in Tower Hamlets.Results141 participants from all settings and generations identified several infant feeding and care practices and wider socioecological factors that could be targeted to optimise nutritional outcomes. Our modifiable infant feeding and care practices were highlighted: untimely introduction of semi and solid foods, overfeeding, prolonged parent-led feeding and feeding to ‘fill the belly’. Wider socioecological determinants were highlighted, categorised here as: (1) society and culture (e.g. equating ‘chubby baby’ to healthy baby), (2) physical and local environment (e.g. fast food outlets, advertising) and (3) information and awareness (e.g. communication with healthcare professionals around cultural norms).ConclusionsParenting interventions should be codeveloped with communities and tailored to recognise and take account of social and cultural norms and influence from different generations that inform infant feeding and care practices and may be of particular importance for infants from ethnically diverse communities. In addition, UK infant feeding environment requires better regulation of marketing of foods for infants and young children if it is to optimise nutrition in the early years.
In March 2020, the outbreak of COVID‐19 was officially declared a global pandemic by the World Health Organization. Given the novelty of the virus, and hence, lack of official guidance on effective containment strategies, individual countries opted for different containment approaches ranging from herd immunity to strict lockdown. The opposing strategies followed by the United Kingdom and its former colony, Malaysia, stand exemplary for this. Real‐time polymerase chain reaction was implemented for testing in both counties. Malaysia acted with strict quarantining rules and infection surveillance. The United Kingdom followed an initially lenient, herd‐immunity approach with strict lockdown only enforced weeks later. Although based on the same health‐care structure historically, Malaysia developed a more unified health system compared with the United Kingdom. We suggest that this more centralized structure could be one possible explanation for why Malaysia was able to react in a more timely and efficient manner, despite its closer geographic proximity to China. We further explore how the differences in testing and quarantining strategy, as well as political situation and societal compliance could account for the discrepancy in the United Kingdom's versus Malaysia's relative success of COVID‐19 containment.
Introduction: The Nurture Early for Optimal Nutrition (NEON) study is a multiphase project that aims to optimize feeding, care and dental hygiene practices in South Asian children <2 years in East London, United Kingdom. The multiphase project uses a participatory learning and action (PLA) approach facilitated by a multilingual community facilitator. In this paper, we elaborate on the process and results of the Intervention Development Phase in the context of the wider NEON programme. Methods: Qualitative community-based participatory intervention codevelopment and adaptation. Setting: Community centres in East London and online (Zoom) meetings and workshops. Participants: In total, 32 participants registered to participate in the Intervention Development Phase. Four Intervention Development workshops were held, attended by 25, 17, 20 and 20 participants, respectively.Results: Collaboratively, a culturally sensitive NEON intervention package was developed consisting of (1) PLA group facilitator manual, (2) picture cards detailing recommended and nonrecommended feeding, care and dental hygiene practices with facilitators/barriers to uptake as well as solutions to address these, (3) healthy infant cultural recipes, (4) participatory Community Asset Maps and (5) list of resources and services supporting infant feeding, care and
scite is a Brooklyn-based organization that helps researchers better discover and understand research articles through Smart Citations–citations that display the context of the citation and describe whether the article provides supporting or contrasting evidence. scite is used by students and researchers from around the world and is funded in part by the National Science Foundation and the National Institute on Drug Abuse of the National Institutes of Health.