UKRI GCRF Action against Stunting Hub

Professor Peter Wood from Birkbeck's School of Computing and Mathematical Sciences is contributing to the work of a major new international research hub that aims to further our understanding of the causes of stunting.

Up to one million children could benefit from the £19.76m research hub led by the London International Development Centre (LIDC), of which Birkbeck is a member, and the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine (LSHTM).

Stunting impacts over 150 million children worldwide. In 2012, the World Health Assembly recognised that child stunting was ‘one of the most significant impediments to human development’ and resolved to reduce the number of children under five who are stunted by 40% by 2025.

The UKRI GCRF Action against Stunting Hub is an interdisciplinary team comprising researchers from 18 institutions. Running for a five-year period from March 2019 to March 2024, the Hub aims to transform current research on child undernutrition or stunting. The team proposes to change the focus of investigation of child undernutrition from individual components of the problem to the ‘whole child’, understanding the biological, social, environmental and behavioural context in which stunting occurs.

Birkbeck's contribution to the project will be the development of a decision support tool. This tool will provide integrated access to the project baseline and intervention data across the biological, social and environmental studies, enabling users to compare the impact and outcome of interventions undertaken during the project.