Scholarship winner’s mission to fight chronic diseases with school nutrition

Christopher Laurie intends to use his newly awarded scholarship to pursue research on how to improve the fledgling nutrition policy in the nation’s schools in the quest to fight lifestyle diseases.

He made the declaration after receiving this year’s Arnott Cato/City of Bridgetown Credit Union Scholarship on Wednesday.

The scholarship is awarded to one Barbadian Master of Public Health (MPH) student every year to assist with their tuition. It is the collaboration between the credit union and the Cato Burton Foundation.

Laurie said that after working with the Heart and Stroke Foundation and other organisations on the National School Nutrition Policy and other initiatives aimed at the rising number of people with noncommunicable diseases in recent years, he needed to continue his research in the field to develop more effective programmes.

“My intended research seeks to both support and evaluate various aspects of this policy, identify implementation gaps, and suggest areas for improvement. Such research is essential if we are to realise our aim of achieving a 50 per cent reduction in new cases of non-communicable diseases by 2023, as highlighted in the 2023 Bridgetown Declaration on non-communicable diseases and mental health,” he said.

“It goes without saying that this cannot be achieved without collective action. I must thank the Cato Burton Foundation, as well as COB for facilitating this award to further public health training in Barbados.”

Launched one year ago, the National School Nutrition Policy aims to create healthy school environments that promote and support the development of healthy lifelong eating and activity behaviours for all children ages 3-17.

In a brief presentation ceremony at the Errol Walrond Clinical Skills Complex on Jemmotts Lane, Dr Heather Harewood, head of the Public Health Group and a lecturer in public health and epidemiology at the University of the West Indies at Cave Hill, said the scholarship is always appreciated, given the importance of a strong and stable public health system.

“The strength of the health system response is predicated upon having a well-trained and agile public health workforce. This requirement was one of the primary reasons for the development of the MPH programme at Cave Hill,” she said.

“A strength of our MPH is the integrated delivery [in] which students are able to benefit from interaction with technical experts from the Ministry of Health, the George Alleyne Chronic Disease Research Centre, as well as other regional and global academic partners, many of whom are adjunct faculty. These opportunities, along with selected field trips and directed activities have equipped our graduates with the needed authentic exposures to enhance their ability to integrate into various workplaces and fields of interest.”

UWI’s MPH graduates have contributed heavily to various public health projects both locally and abroad, she said: “This MPH focuses on equipping persons with the knowledge and skills required to provide leadership and effective management within health and allied sectors and disciplines, regionally and beyond.

“We are happy to highlight that many of our graduates and several of our past scholarship recipients are making sterling contributions in areas such as breast cancer research among women of the African diaspora, management of a multicenter household food and nutrition project and contributions to academia and key stakeholders in health planning and health service delivery at the Ministry of Health and Wellness and the Queen Elizabeth hospital, respectively.”

Dr Clyde Cave, Board Trustee of the Cato Burton Foundation, stated that the organisation has always been drawn to UWI’s public health programme since public health is vital not just for individual citizens but also for the community as a whole.

“Public health has been one of the areas carrying the banner to say it’s not just about your health, you are part of a community. How you fit into this is extremely important, and as we learned recently in an epidemic and pandemic, perhaps even more important than individual health is how we collectively move forward.

“This course has always been attractive to the Cato Burton Foundation. Initially, when it was the Sir Arnott Cato Foundation, the purpose of that foundation was to assist in the human resource development of health workers in Barbados and St Vincent,” he explained.

The scholarship is named for St Vincent-born surgeon Sir Arnott Cato, a UWI graduate, who was a prominent figure in medicine, medical education and public life in Barbados for over 60 years. A former senator and chairman of the Public Service Commission, the Privy Councilor acted as Governor General on many occasions before he died in 1998.
(SB)