The INPreP study team of the NHRC had the rare opportunity to present its findings at the 2019 International Society for Developmental Origin of Health and Disease (DOHaD) conference held in Melbourne, Australia from 20th-23rd October 2019. The INPreP project, which aims to design a double duty nutrition intervention to tackle the double burden of malnutrition in the periods of preconception, during pregnancy and post-delivery (first 1000days) in three SSA countries of Ghana, Burkina Faso and South Africa, was represented by its principal investigator, Dr. Engelbert A. Nonterah and the coordinator, Ms. Paula Beeri from the centre. At the conference the project presented a poster titled “Policy environment around the first 1000DaysPlus of life in Ghana: analyses of policy documents and stakeholder panels” which summarized country specific findings of work package 1 from Ghana. This work package sought to understand the current policy landscape across Burkina Faso, Ghana and South Africa.
Other prominent personalities also present at the conference were INPreP team members from MRC Lifecourse Epidemiology unit based in the University of Southampton (Professors Keith M. Godfrey, Mark Hanson and Mary Barker as well as Daniella Watson) and the INPreP South African team led by Prof Shane Norris, who doubles as the founder of DOHaD Africa. At the meeting a second INPreP poster was presented by Ms. Daniella Watson and this poster outlined the rationale of the study and the expected outputs.
Highlights of the conference included several poster presentations from different parts of the world, plenary sessions with various DOHaD related topics were discussed and workshops which further presented several research findings. Participants were representatives of every continent of the planet but sadly, Ghana (only 3 participants) and Africa for that matter was under-represented.
DOHaD is an international society of researchers from all over the world, set up to promote research into fetal and developmental origins of disease.