Overweight and tooth decay are commonly co-occurring conditions in children, especially from families at a low socio-economic position. This impacts their health later in life and increases health inequalities. In this project together with all stakeholders, we 1) will acquire knowledge on the interplay between lifestyle, environment and microbiota during the first 1000 days of life; 2) will learn how to provide care that fits the needs and the complex daily reality of the children and their families; and 3) based on this knowledge we will co-create effective interventions for the prevention of overweight and tooth decay.
Simultaneously with the conception of our RPA, the idea arose for a proposal within Research along Routes by Consortia (NWA-ORC) 2020/2021 on prevention of dental caries and overweight in young children. From the initiative stage until the full proposal of METAHEALTH project, the consortium grew enormously in its expertise and besides UvA and ACTA, the co-applicants from the VU, AUMC, WUR, University of Porto, Inholland, HvA and TNO and numerous societal partners joined forces in this proposal.
After 1.5 years of hard work, on March 28 we received the great news from NWO that our proposal was among the happy few. Out of 59 proposals that were selected for the interviews, we ranked as nr 7 and are granted 9 mEURO by NWO additionally to the co-financing 1 mEURO by our co-funding partners GGD-Amsterdam, Bètapartners, NIBI, Jeugdtandverzorging (JTV) Amsterdam, Onkolyze, Supabase, Nederlandse Vereniniging voor Kindertandheelkunde and PANEL BV.
Congratulations and many thanks to all colleagues involved! Special thanks to artist Anca Danila for permission to use her painting ‘Infant obesity’ for our proposal and project.
The expected start of the project is January 2023. The project will be led by director of RPA-PMH prof. Egija Zaura (ACTA). Currently we are in the negotiations phase regarding the consortium agreement and the data management plan.
More on METAHEALTH in the media:
- The podcast/interview with Monique van der Veen about METAHEALTH: listen here
- A video by Egija Zaura about METAHEALTH: – view here
- March 28, 2022: NWA-ORC 2020/2021 call proposal METAHEALTH granted. More info here
