In line with the United Nation’s Sustainable Development Goals urgent call for action by all countries – developed and developing – the Global Public Health and Active Nutrition (GHAN) key purpose is to harness global partnership and advance research to improve the health, wellbeing, and performance, of populations globally and nationally, now and for generations to come. It connects expertise in nutraceuticals, nutrition, metabolism, physiology, and sport science, alongside expertise in health data science, public health, food security, health economics & policy, to drive strategies in combating the incidence of communicable and non-communicable chronic diseases; aid evidence-based decision making to develop cost-effective delivery of preventative, therapeutic and curative interventions; and drive human performance. The group’s focus on active nutrition extends beyond specialist sports and athletes to bridge the gap between public health and sports nutrition, applying the insights from specialist nutrition, nutraceutical, food, exercise and epidemiological research to the general population. The group thus occupies a unique position with very few such research groupings in existence.
This research group aligns with the vision of the Centre, the School and University. It embodies the Centre’s focus on ‘acting as a catalyst for improving human health and wellbeing guided by research and innovation and to be a credible source of reliable and trustworthy scientifically validated information for professionals as well as the general public via knowledge dissemination and training’. This is evident from the sample projects listed below. Similarly, a major focus of the school strategy is to harmonise research and knowledge exchange. The nature of the work ongoing and proposed in this centre fully supports these goals. Current projects we envisage to be the leading grouping of this kind with an international repute.
The Global Public Health and Active Nutrition Group has expertise in clinical nutrition (diet-induced thermogenesis, anthropometry, glycaemic response and glycaemic index test), nutraceuticals, antioxidant analysis in novel foods, global health, public health nutrition, food security, health economics evaluation, public health policy, anthropology, macronutrients and micronutrients analysis in food, functional food development, formulation and development of ready-to-use therapeutic foods, new food product development, neurometabolism, cell metabolism, muscle physiology, gut endocrinology, behaviour change, and human performance.