The UK health service is under immense strain in the wake of the coronavirus pandemic and with a shortage of clinicians, it now faces another existential crisis: the health of our young people. We are, according to Kath Woods-Townsend, Principal Research Fellow at the University of Southampton, facing an “epidemic of illness that is heading towards the NHS” as a result of poor public health.
“From a public health perspective, we’re good at just telling people what to do and giving them a leaflet,” says Kath. “Funnily enough, that doesn’t work – and the problem is just getting worse and worse.”
Changing our behaviour is difficult, but actually understanding why we’re told to get more exercise and eat at least five portions of fruit and vegetables a day can be the one thing that makes the difference. And it’s never too early to gain that understanding. That’s why LifeLab was set up in 2009. Working in partnership between the University of Southampton, University Hospital Southampton and the NIHR Southampton Biomedical Research Centre, it brings primary and secondary school-age students together with biologists and clinicians to understand how their bodies work. A set curriculum is taught through school science lessons and the young people also visit the centre for hands-on teaching about genetics and optimum physical health.
“The lifestyles we lead impact on our epigenetics, which control which genes are switched on and off, and are passed onto future generations. We are asking: what do I do to make sure I have the best possible health when I get older?” says Kath.
What’s really exciting is that we’ve had interest from people in different countries who are interested in taking this approach around engaging with young people rather than just giving information and expecting people to change behaviours.
Kath Woods-Townsend, Principal Research Fellow
LifeLab in Southampton is the only facility of its kind in the UK, and has carried out successful studies on what works when educating children and teenagers about their health. Now, 15 years later, it is spawning a whole group of similar practices working with children and young people all over the globe from Dublin in Ireland to Sydney in Australia to Soweto in South Africa. There are also plans to establish LifeLab centres in Nepal and Ghana.
These programmes are in pilot or planning stages, but academics and clinicians from these countries are coming together as part of a global community of practice to spread the word about how to live a longer and healthier life. Funding from UK Research and Innovation, through the University’s Sustainability and Resilience Institute allowed the LifeLab team to bring representatives from all centres together in Southampton in January to establish a common curriculum, a set of shared evaluation methods for their projects and a joint vision for how LifeLabs should operate.
What fascinated the team was that the responses from young people to the project were very similar around the world, despite their very diverse backgrounds and communities. For many children, the drive to live a healthier life was motivated by a desire to protect their future descendants through better genetics – and to protect the health of the planet too.
“Actually, that’s a bigger driver than thinking about their own health. Young people are more altruistic than we ever give them credit for. When you think about how our actions impact others, you get much more buy-in,” says Kath. “What we need to do to keep our planet healthy - those are the choices that are good for us as well. It’s really feeding into teenagers’ values.”
For all the academic participants across the world, the biggest success from LifeLab’s global spread will be the voice it gives children and teenagers, and the agency that access to information hands them to support their own health. The groundbreaking public health research findings are an added bonus, says Kath. “For me, it is about enabling young people to realise the futures they want to have.”
