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Researching the impact of Black and Asian women leadership within East of England domestic abuse services

    The East of England is a region with minimal presence of ‘by and for’ (BFR) domestic abuse (DA) specialist services despite being home to Black and Asian communities. A VISION-funded research project, ‘Nothing about us without us’: Investigating the impact of the leadership of ethnic minority women on domestic abuse service provision in East England’, is exploring the impact of the leadership of Black and Asian women within DA service provision in the region.

    As part of the work, researchers Dr Mirna Guha (Anglia Ruskin University) and Dr Katherine Allen (University of Suffolk), hosted a leadership event on 3 April 2025 for racially and culturally diverse women. Held at a venue provided by the City of London police, the event was part of a leadership programme implemented through the HUM (‘Us) : A Place-based Emerging-Leaders Model designed and piloted by Mirna and Katherine to diversify leadership in domestic abuse and sexual violence services. Research aims include ensuring culturally responsive and representative support for minoritised victims-survivors in East England.

    Prior to the April event, Mirna and Katherine researched the leadership needs of 19 overstretched frontline practitioners i.e. ‘emerging leaders’ from racialised communities working within White-majority and at times professionally isolating generalist services across Bedfordshire, Suffolk and Cambridgeshire. East England is home to scattered racialised and diasporic communities where women’s leadership in local politics and policymaking is low. Based on this, three events on trauma-informed, culturally responsive and diverse styles of leadership have been co-produced with national DASV experts. Participants were invited to also join a regionally pioneering Community of Practice (CoP).

    At the April event in London, 15 emerging leaders from racialised backgrounds gained insights into the strategies, opportunities and challenges of practising culturally and racially representative leadership through an inspiring keynote by Superintendent Jasvinder Kaur, Domestic Abuse Lead at Suffolk Constabulary and co-founder of the National Women of Colour in Policing network. Furthermore, nine Black and racialised women speakers associated with statutory institutions viz. Cambridge City Council and the National Police Chief’s Council.

    Voluntary organisations also spoke including Apna Haq in Rotherham, Asian Women’s Resource Centre in London, and Karim Foundation in Cambridge. Others also shared their experiences of navigating rural and predominantly White spaces, and their strategies for claiming space, giving voice to community members and creating opportunities for other culturally and racially diverse women leaders. One notable theme was the pathbreaking role each panellist had assumed during her career, opening (or at times creating) doors for herself and those who followed. Discussions across the day dwelled on temporality and the changing political landscapes as well as place-based challenges linked to rurality.

    Overall, the leadership model, including this event and others and the growing leadership CoP, with a current membership of 25 emerging women leaders, aims to address these contextual and temporal challenges by bolstering and diversifying racialised women’s leadership in public services to ensure equity for minoritised victims-survivors.

    By laying the groundwork for a regional advisory board through the CoP, the model challenges the epistemic erasure of racially and culturally minoritised women within the design of DASV, and broadly, public services which exacerbate the postcode lottery of services across England and Wales. Inspired by Pawson and Tilley’s (1997)[1] approach to realist evaluation (which seeks to understand what works for whom and in which circumstances) Mirna and Katherine aim to evaluate the impact of the leadership programme and CoP on how emerging leaders navigate specific challenges rooted in specific professional, relational and spatial contexts.

    [1] Pawson, R. and Tilley, N., 1997. Realistic evaluation.

    For further information, please contact Mirna at mirna.guha@aru.ac.uk

    Photograph courtesy of Dr Mirna Guha and Dr Katherine Allen.

    VISION/VASC Webinar Series: The intersection of a gendered economy and violence prevention

      Mary-Ann Stephenson

      We are pleased to announce our next webinar for the VISION and Violence & Society Centre (VASC) Webinar Series on Tuesday, 17 June, 11.00 – 11.50.

      Mary-Ann Stephenson is the Director of Women’s Budget Group (WBG), a feminist think tank that works in research, advocacy and training to realise a gender equal economy in the UK. As an influential link between academia, the community and voluntary sector, and through their activities of government building and exchanging evidence, data, knowledge, and capacity, WBG’s work often interlinks with violence-prevention research and policy.

      Examples include their 2019 report, Benefits or barriers? Making social security work for survivors of violence and abuse across the UK’s four nations, written with Surviving Economic Abuse and End Violence Against Women Coalition. Findings highlighted that the social security systems across the UK failed survivors of violence and abuse when they needed help most.

      In 2024, WBG published Funding for violence against women and girls services: Briefing for a new government. Recommendations included:

      • A commitment to long-term grant funding for specialist women’s services, including ringfenced funding for services led ‘by and for’ Black and minoritised women, Deaf and disabled women and LGBT+ survivors.
      • More specialist training for police dealing with VAWG cases.
      • Reform social security (including uprating benefits and scrapping the benefits cap and two-child limit) to ensure women’s economic independence and their ability to leave abusive relationships.

      In this webinar, Mary-Ann will highlight WBG’s programme of work demonstrating that a gender equal economy and the embedding of gender equality policymaking are necessary in the reduction of violence against women.

      Please join the VISION research consortium and the Violence and Society Centre at City St George’s University of London for what will be a fascinating exploration of economic inequality through a gendered lens.

      To register for the event and receive the Teams link, please contact: VISION_Management_Team@city.ac.uk

      The purpose of the VISION/VASC webinar series is to provide a platform for academia, government and the voluntary and community sector that work to reduce and prevent violence to present their work / research to a wider audience. This is a multidisciplinary platform and we welcome speakers from across a variety of fields such as health, crime, policing, ethnicity, migration, sociology, social work, primary care, front line services, etc. If interested in presenting at a future Series webinar, please contact: VISION_Management_Team@city.ac.uk

      This webinar series is sponsored by the UK Prevention and Research Partnership consortium, Violence, Health and Society (VISION; MR-V049879) and the Violence and Society Centre at City St George’s, University of London.

      Systematic review: Effectiveness of UK-based adult domestic and sexual violence support interventions and services

        Recommendations

        • Further high-quality research into the effectiveness of domestic and sexual violence and abuse (DVSA) interventions and evaluations of perpetrator programmes are required, including randomised controlled studies where appropriate and ethical, to improve certainty regarding the effect estimates generated from evidence syntheses. Published protocols, adherence to reporting guidelines, such as CONSORT, STROBE and SQUIRE 2.0, and considering and accounting for confounding factors where randomisation is not feasible, will strengthen the research.
        • Developing a core outcome set via co-production with survivors, practitioners and service providers, commissioners, policy makers and researchers will increase consistency in reported outcomes and create the cohesion necessary to develop a robust evidence base to aid understanding of how effective various support services are.

        In the United Kingdom, there are a range of support services and interventions for people who have experienced domestic and sexual violence and abuse (DSVA), including refuges, advocacy such as Independent Domestic Violence Advisors (IDVAs), referral, outreach, and helplines. These are often provided by the Voluntary and Community Sector (VCS), although may also be located in the public or private sector. Due to the lack of consensus on outcomes used to assess effectiveness, evidence syntheses in this field have been limited.

        Dr Sophie Carlisle led a team of VISION researchers, Dr Annie Bunce, Prof Sally McManus, Dr Estela Capelas Barbosa, Prof Gene Feder, and Dr Natalia V Lewis, and Prof Matthew Prina from Kings College London. They used findings from their scoping review to identify the common reported outcomes, to direct and inform an evidence synthesis on the effectiveness of UK-based interventions and services for DSVA.

        The team conducted a systematic review and, where possible, meta-analysis. They searched relevant peer reviewed and grey literature sources. The following were included: randomised controlled trials, non-randomised comparative studies, pre-post studies, and service evaluations of support interventions or services for adults who had experienced or perpetrated DSVA. The intervention typology and selection of outcomes was determined based on co-production with stakeholders from specialist DSVA organisations. The quality of the studies was assessed independently by two reviewers. Where meta-analysis was not possible, the researchers synthesized studies with vote counting based on the direction of effect.

        The review demonstrates that there appear to be benefits of UK-based advocacy and outreach services, psychological support interventions, and perpetrator programmes. However, risk of bias and methodological heterogeneity means that there is uncertainty regarding the estimated effects.

        A co-produced core-outcome set is needed to develop a more robust evidence base and facilitate future research in this field. Research practices such as publishing of study protocols, following reporting guidelines and, for research where randomisation is not feasible, considering and accounting for potential confounding factors, would greatly improve the quality of research.

        To download the paper: Effectiveness of UK-based support interventions and services aimed at adults who have experienced or used domestic and sexual violence and abuse: a systematic review and meta-analysis – PMC

        To cite: Carlisle S, Bunce A, Prina M, McManus S, Barbosa E, Feder G, Lewis NV. Effectiveness of UK-based support interventions and services aimed at adults who have experienced or used domestic and sexual violence and abuse: a systematic review and meta-analysis. BMC Public Health. 2025 Mar 14;25(1):1003. doi: 10.1186/s12889-025-21891-5. PMID: 40087589; PMCID: PMC11908015.

        For further information, please contact Sophie at sophie.carlisle4@nhs.net

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        VISION Policy Briefing: Domestic violence and abuse and mental and physical health

          Domestic violence and abuse (DVA) is prevalent within the United Kingdom (UK) and has severe and long-lasting physical and mental health consequences. An estimated 2.3 million adults in England and Wales (4.8%) experienced domestic abuse in the past 12 months. More women than men experience DVA, and women experience more repeated abuse, more physical, sexual, and emotional violence and coercive control, more injuries, and greater fear.

          We, in the VISION research consortium, investigate how DVA is related to health. This policy briefing summarises evidence from five of our recent publications. We highlight the key recommendation resulting from across the research and discuss the key findings and evidence demonstrating the prevalence of DVA and the need for a cross-government approach to violence prevention.

          Key Recommendation

          A cross-government approach to preventing violence needs to include health services, alongside justice, welfare, education and other sectors. An effective and safe NHS response to survivors of domestic violence needs to be implemented. That response, embedded in training for healthcare professionals and referral to appropriate services, stretches from identification of survivors to initial support, to addressing the mental health and other sequelae of violence. Currently, the response is sporadic and patchy, with many Integrated Care Boards (ICBs) not commissioning necessary services. Integrated commissioning, as recommended in the NICE guidelines, could help bridge silos and sectors. 

          Key findings

          • Domestic violence and abuse (DVA) affects the physical and mental health of victim-survivors.
          • About half of people who attempted suicide in the past year had experienced violence from a partner at some point in their life, and one in four experienced violence from a partner in the preceding year 
          • The type of intimate partner relationship and the type of violence and abuse affects the nature and level of physical and mental health consequences. 
          • People who use violence against their partners also tend to have worse mental health, and mental health services present an opportunity for intervention with this group. 

          To download the paper: VISION Policy Briefing: Domestic violence and abuse and mental and physical health

          To cite: Blom, N., Davies, E., Hashemi, L., Obolenskaya, P., Bhavsar, V., & McManus, S. (2025). VISION Policy Briefing: Domestic violence and abuse and mental and physical health. City St George’s, University of London. https://doi.org/10.25383/city.28653212.v3

          For further information, please contact Niels at niels.blom@manchester.ac.uk

          Call for Frontiers in Sociology abstracts: Enhancing data collection and integration to Reduce health harms and inequalities linked to violence

            Frontiers in Sociology is currently welcoming submissions of original research for the following research topic: Enhancing Data Collection and Integration to Reduce Health Harms and Inequalities Linked to Violence.

            This edition is guest-edited by Dr Estela Capelas Barbosa (University of Bristol and the UKPRP VISION research consortium), Dr Annie Bunce (City St. George’s, UoL and the UKPRP VISION research consortium), and Katie Smith (City St. George’s, UoL / University of Bristol).

            Submissions should focus on any of the following:

            • advancing measurement approaches which emphasise cross-sector harmonisation to better evaluate interventions, address health inequalities, and reduce violence
            • addressing any form of violence (e.g., physical, non-physical, technology-facilitated) and its impacts on health, social and economic well-being, and marginalised groups, considering intersections of age, gender, ethnicity, disability, and religion

            Research using existing datasets or primary data (quantitative or qualitative), cross-sectoral and cross-disciplinary approaches (e.g., sociology, criminology, public health), and lived experience perspectives is encouraged.

            Contributions may include conceptual reviews, methodological innovations, empirical studies and systematic reviews on themes such as health inequalities, intervention effectiveness, outcome measurement, data harmonisation, and linkage strategies.

            Abstracts are due by 7th April 2025, and the deadline for manuscripts is 28th July 2025.

            For details of the different article types accepted and associated costs, please follow this link https://www.frontiersin.org/journals/sociology/for-authors/publishing-fees.

            For more information and to submit an abstract or manuscript, please use the “I’m interested” link below or visit the Research Topic page here https://www.frontiersin.org/research-topics/67291/enhancing-data-collection-and-integration-to-reduce-health-harms-and-inequalities-linked-to-violence. 

            This special edition provides an excellent opportunity to advance knowledge in this critical area. Please do reach out and contact us if you have any questions: annie.bunce@city.ac.uk

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            Upcoming event: Weaving Stories of Peer Sexual Abuse 

              Insights from a youth co-created animation project

              Weaving Stories is a pilot animation project developed by County-Durham arts education company, Changing Relations, and funded via the VISION research consortium through the Small Projects Fund.

              The animation was co-produced with Secondary-aged students, survivors of peer sexual abuse, and an artistic team, to amplify young people’s voices on the theme of unwanted sexual behaviour and the culture that enables it. The students and young survivors shaped every aspect of the animation.

              An interdisciplinary Steering Group of academic researchers, creative practitioners, and child protection and sexual violence specialists from a North East school and Rape Crisis centre, were also involved in the project.

              With this animation and associated school based learning programme, Changing Relations seeks to influence knowledge, behaviour, and institutional change using the impactful animation as stimulus for reflection. Following this pilot project, VISION and Changing Relations have organised a one-hour webinar for UK policymakers and practitioners to:

              • Watch the co-created animation (20 minutes)
              • Hear young people’s perspectives on the key themes and co-production approach
              • Explore the animation’s potential impact on school cultures, disclosure, help-seeking, and victim-blaming attitudes
              • Engage in academic-informed analysis of trauma-informed safeguarding and youth-centred approaches to sexual violence prevention
              • Gain practical insights on using creative participatory approaches to engage young people in conversations about violence and abuse
              • Consider actionable recommendations for policy and practice
              • Contribute your reflections

              This webinar will be of interest to a wide range of professionals who work with adolescents and / or in violence-prevention. Educators, social workers, academics, and third sector, central and local government policy analysts and researchers in particular may be interested.

              There are two dates providing the option to choose between a more practice or policy oriented session:

              • Thursday 8th May 1-2pm for policymakers
              • Wednesday 14th May 3-4pm for practitioners

              Speakers and facilitators

              • Lisa Davis, Managing Director, Changing Relations
              • Kate Gorman, Creative Producer and Artistic Director, Changing Relations
              • Kimberly Cullen, Knowledge Exchange Manager, UKPRP VISION research consortium, City St George’s UoL

              Webinar registration

              To register for free for either the 8th or 14th of May, please visit our page on Ticket Tailor.

              The webinar will be on Microsoft Teams and you will receive the link on the day you choose to attend.

              For further information, please contact VISION_Management_Team@citystgeorges.ac.uk

              United to End Violence Against Women and Girls: An Online Animated Campaign  

                Violence against women and girls (VAWG) is a pressing issue in Iran, a Middle Eastern country marked by its patriarchal structure and systematic and pervasive gender discrimination. Educational programmes addressing this issue are scarce, and cultural barriers often hinder open discussion. The United to End Violence Against Women and Girls campaign aims to break this silence through a series of animated videos in Farsi and English and images designed to inform public discourse and to empower victims to seek support.

                 The United to End Violence Against Women and Girls project was led by VISION researchers Ladan Hashemi and Sally McManus, in collaboration with colleagues from other UK universities including the University of Bristol, Goldsmiths University, Animation Research Centre at the University for the Creative Arts, and Leeds Beckett University. 

                They worked with an animation production team in Iran, a social media advisor, and two advisory groups. The advisory groups were Mehre Shams Afarid, an Iran-based non-governmental organisation (NGO), and IKWRO, a London-based charity providing services to women victims of violence from the Middle Eastern and North African (MENA) region—to incorporate culturally specific insights.

                Although the project initially focused on Iran, engaging with the UK-based NGO revealed an interest in extending its reach. As a result, English subtitles were added to make the animations accessible to a wider audience. This collaboration helped the content resonate with audiences both in Iran and within the global diaspora community, particularly those from the MENA region.

                The animations are grounded in evidence from a survey of 453 women in Iran, which explored the manifestation of various forms of VAWG in Iran and women’s perspectives on how to eliminate it. The survey was designed by Fatima Babakhani, CEO of Mehre Shams Afarid.

                Key findings from participants’ open-ended responses to the survey showed that, despite structural inequalities and deeply ingrained societal, cultural, and religious norms that perpetuate VAWG, change is possible through education and legal reforms.

                As one survey participant noted: “Unfortunately, many still don’t understand what violence truly is. Raising awareness is the solution.”

                The first four United to End Violence Against Women and Girls campaign animations focus on coercive control, economic abuse, technology-facilitated abuse, and active bystander interventions, with two more animations in development.

                With guidance from an Iranian social media advisor, a digital strategy was developed to maximise the campaign’s impact. Instagram was chosen as the primary distribution platform, as it is the most widely used social media platform in Iran, with over 47 million users. The animations are also shared on YouTube to further extend the campaign’s reach.

                Influencers and women’s rights activists with followings from thousands to millions were partnered with to amplify the campaign’s reach. The online campaign officially launched 25th November, on the International Day for the Elimination of Violence Against Women and Girls.

                By leveraging evidence-based content and strategic partnerships, we hope to spark meaningful conversations and drive change across Iran and the diaspora communities from the MENA region.

                Join us in raising awareness and advocating for change. Please follow and share the campaign links on your social media to help spread the message.

                Link to Instagram page

                Link to YouTube channel

                This project was funded by City St George’s, University of London Higher Education Impact Fund (HEIF) Knowledge Exchange and by the UKPRP VISION research consortium.

                For further information, please contact Ladan at ladan.hashemi@city.ac.uk

                VISION responds to Parliamentary, government & non-government consultations

                  Consultation, evidence and inquiry submissions are an important part of our work at VISION. Responding to Parliamentary, government and non-government organisation consultations ensures that a wide range of opinions and voices are factored into the policy decision making process. As our interdisciplinary research addresses violence and how it cuts across health, crime and justice and the life course, we think it is important to take the time to answer any relevant call and to share our insight and findings to support improved policy and practice. We respond as VISION, the Violence & Society Centre, and sometimes in collaboration with others. Below are the links to our published responses and evidence from June 2022.

                  1. UK Parliament – Public Accounts Committee – Inquiry: Tackling Violence against Women and Girls (VAWG). Our submission was published in April 2025.
                  2. UK Parliament – Women and Equalities Committee – Inquiry: Community Cohesion. Our submission was published in February 2025.
                  3. UK Parliament – Call for evidence on the Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill. Our submission was published in February 2025.
                  4. UK Parliament – Public Accounts Committee – Inquiry: Use of Artificial Intelligence in Government. Our submission was published in January 2025.
                  5. UK Parliament – Public Accounts Committee – Inquiry: Tackling Homelessness. Our submission with Dr Natasha Chilman was published in January 2025. See the full report
                  6. Home Office – Legislation consultation: Statutory Guidance for the Conduct of Domestic Homicide Reviews. Our submission was published on the VISION website in July 2024.
                  7. UK Parliament – Women and Equalities Committee – Inquiry: The rights of older people. Our submission was published in November 2023
                  8. UK Parliament  – Women and Equalities Committee – Inquiry: The impact of the rising cost of living on women. Our submission was published in November 2023
                  9. UK Parliament – Women and Equalities Committee – Inquiry: The escalation of violence against women and girls. Our submission published in September 2023
                  10. Home Office – Legislation consultation: Machetes and other bladed articles: proposed legislation (submitted response 06/06/2023). Government response to consultation and summary of public responses was published in August 2023
                  11. Welsh Government – Consultation: National action plan to prevent the abuse of older people. Summary of the responses published in April 2023
                  12. Race Disparity Unit (RDU) – Consultation: Standards for Ethnicity Data (submitted response 30/08/2022). Following the consultation, a revised version of the data standards was published in April 2023
                  13. UK Parliament – The Home Affairs Committee – Call for evidence: Human Trafficking. Our submission was published in March 2023
                  14. UN expert – Call for evidence: Violence, abuse and neglect in older people. Our submission was published in February 2023
                  15. UK Parliament – The Justice and Home Affairs Committee – Inquiry: Family migration. Our submission was published in September 2022 and a report was published following the inquiry in February 2023
                  16. Home Office – Consultation: Controlling or Coercive behaviour Statutory Guidance. Our submission was published in June 2022

                  For further information, please contact us at VISION_Management_Team@city.ac.uk

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                  The impact and risk factors of adolescent domestic abuse: A rapid systematic review

                    As a phenomenon, abusive behavior between adolescents in intimate relationships remains relatively invisible, due in part to the persistent yet unfounded assumption that domestic abuse is something that occurs between adults. There is an emerging body of evidence indicating that both victimization and perpetration in intimate partner relationships can and do occur well before adulthood.

                    This review seeks to improve understandings of intimate partner abuse between adolescents, focusing in particular on younger adolescents below the age of 16 and the impacts and risk and protective factors.

                    VISION researchers Dr Ruth Weir, Dr Olumide Adisa and Dr Niels Blom, with their collaborators, conducted a rapid systematic review by searching three electronic databases (PsycInfo, Embase, and Social Sciences Citation Index). The team utilized pre-existing systematic reviews to identify relevant primary studies. Findings of the included studies were described and summarized using narrative synthesis.

                    Seventy-nine studies were identified for inclusion. Synthesis of the findings of these studies identified five categories of risk and protective factors, including bullying and parental intimate partner violence, social and cultural factors, school and neighborhood environment and health and wellbeing. However, the review also identified a gap of qualitative research and a lack of attention to how ADA intersects with cultural factors, gender differences, criminalization, and poor mental health. Many of the studies report on school-based settings, limiting understanding of the role of neighborhood factors in prevention, protection and recovery. Participatory research on help-seeking behaviors of adolescents is rare.

                    The review synthesized risk and protective factors associated with ADA, especially those occurring between younger adolescents. It highlighted the complex interplay and overlap between using and experiencing violence and abuse and the need for systematic research to inform the development of advocacy, interventions and prevention that is right for young people.

                    Highlights from the VISION ADA rapid review: Gaps, limitations & considerations for future research

                    • Little recent academic interest on ADA in the UK
                    • Focus in existing global literature on physical or sexual violence but less so on coercive control or emotional / psychological abuse
                    • Lack of systematic examination of long-term consequences of ADA on wellbeing
                    • Lack of intersectional analysis (ethnicity, sexual orientation, socioeconomic status, etc)
                    • Little exploration of adolescents’ help-seeking behaviours and attitudes to different kinds of possible support
                    • Research design limitations

                    To download the paper: Adolescent Domestic Abuse and Its Consequences: A Rapid Systematic Review | Journal of Family Violence

                    To cite: Weir, R., Adisa, O., Blom, N. et al. Adolescent Domestic Abuse and Its Consequences: A Rapid Systematic Review. J Fam Viol (2025). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10896-025-00813-4

                    For more information on this rapid review, please contact Ruth at ruth.weir@city.ac.uk

                    To view and / or download the list of systematic reviews included in this paper:

                    SRs included in Weir ADA journal articleDownload

                    Further ADA research across the VISION consortium:

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                    Positive experiences can mitigate negative effects in children with trauma

                      Children with traumatic experiences in their early lives have a higher risk of obesity. But as new research from VISION researcher Dr Ladan Hashemi and colleagues at University of Auckland, New Zealand, demonstrate, this risk can be reduced through positive experiences.

                      Their analysis of data from around 5,000 children in the Growing Up in New Zealand study revealed nine out of ten faced at least one significant source of trauma by the time they were eight years old. Multiple adverse experiences were also prevalent, with one in three children experiencing at least three traumatic events. Notably, certain traumatic experiences (including physical abuse and parental domestic violence) related more strongly to obesity than others. This highlights the strong connection between early-life adversity and physical health outcomes.

                      Whilst researching the associations between obesity and childhood trauma, the team also explored the protective and mitigating effects of positive experiences. They defined positive experiences as:

                      • mothers interacting well with their children
                      • mothers involved in social groups
                      • children engaged in enriching experiences and activities such as visiting libraries or museums and participating in sports and community events
                      • children living in households with routines and rules, including those regulating bedtime, screen time and mealtimes
                      • children attending effective early childhood education

                      The findings were encouraging. Children with more positive experiences were significantly less likely to be obese by age eight. For example, those with five or six positive experiences were 60% less likely to be overweight or obese compared to children with zero or one positive experience. Even two positive experiences reduced the likelihood by a quarter.

                      Among children exposed to multiple adversities, positive experiences can help mitigate the negative effects of childhood trauma. However, at least four positive experiences were required to significantly counteract the impact of adverse experiences.

                      Recommendations

                      • Traditional weight-loss programmes focused solely on changing behaviours are not enough to tackle childhood obesity. To create lasting change, children need positive social environments and life experiences as well as support to address the emotional scars of early trauma shaping their lives.
                      • Fostering positive experiences is a vital part of this holistic approach. These experiences not only help protect children from the harmful effects of adversity but also promote their overall physical and mental wellbeing. This isn’t just about preventing obesity – it’s about giving children the foundation to thrive and reach their full potential.
                      • Sure Start and providers of early childhood education and support for parents could help reduce the health inequalities resulting from exposure to violence.

                      To download the paper: Identification of positive childhood experiences with the potential to mitigate childhood unhealthy weight status in children within the context of adverse childhood experiences: a prospective cohort study | BMC Public Health

                      To cite: Mellar, B.M., Ghasemi, M., Gulliver, P. et al. Identification of positive childhood experiences with the potential to mitigate childhood unhealthy weight status in children within the context of adverse childhood experiences: a prospective cohort study. BMC Public Health 25, 8 (2025). https://doi.org/10.1186/s12889-024-20727-y

                      For further information on the research:

                      Or for further information, please contact Ladan at ladan.hashemi@city.ac.uk

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