Introduction

UWI SODECO is an international research charity of the University of the West Indies. UWI SODECO is comprised of two parts; Solutions for Medicine (SFM), which focuses on translation research to build human resilience, and Solutions for Society which is oriented towards enhancing environmental and social resilience. UWI SODECO is international in its outlook, strategies and operations and leverages its global network to perform the translation research needed in poor countries to inform better treatments for major health problems, as well as providing solutions to environmental and associated socioeconomic problems. The objectives of UWI SODECO are aligned with UN Sustainable Development Goals, especially 1, 3, 4, 10, 11, 13, 14, 15 and 17.

Goals

UWI SODECO aims to use translation research to provide the evidence for:

• interventions to improve health outcomes including cognition and behaviour in children who suffer severe malnutrition through our ongoing work in Bangladesh
• interventions to improve cognition in adults who were severely malnourished as children through our ongoing work in Jamaica
• interventions to enhance environmental resilience through restoring dead and degraded mangroves along the south coast in Clarendon Jamaica
• interventions to enhance health, wealth and wellbeing of the population who reside in and around these mangroves.

Research Programme

Solutions for Medicine Grants

US$2.5M National Institutes of Health, 2018–2023

The overall PI for this project, Lara Dugas, is from Loyola University of Chicago with CO-PIs in Jamaica (UWI SODECO), Ghana, South Africa, and Seychelles. This project explores the role of gut bacteria (microbiome) in the increasing risk of obesity and co-morbidities such as diabetes and hypertension in populations of African origin.

US$1.0M National Institutes of Health 2020–2024.

This project is shared among the same collaborators above to explore the role of sleep disturbance and meal timing on obesity and diabetes incidence.

Wellcome Leap US$1.0M 2020–2024.

This project is shared among The UWI (UWI SODECO), origin of the overall PI (Terrence Forrester), and Harvard U, Advent Health and the International Center for Diarrhoeal Research, Bangladesh. The project is designed to evaluate the impact of brain-targeted nutritional supplements on cognition and emotion regulation in children suffering severe acute malnutrition in Dhaka, Bangladesh who are rehabilitated using our specially designed feed developed in collaboration with Nutriset-fr.

Groupe Nutriset €0.9M 2022–2025.

This project also has its origin at UWI (UWI SODECO PI, Terrence Forrester) and is designed to evaluate the effect of aerobic exercise on cognition and emotion regulation of adult survivors of severe acute malnutrition in childhood in Jamaica. Collaborating institutions are, Advent Health, USA; The Liggins Institute, University of Auckland; and Department of Pediatrics, Boston Children’s Hospital, HU.

All research projects in Solutions for Medicine are being implemented and are on time.

Solutions for Society Grants

US$2.5M Inter-American Development Bank 2020–2026.

This project originated in UWI (UWI SODECO, PI Terrence Forrester) and is designed to restore, monitor and maintain mangroves in south Clarendon where half the 3,500-hectare forest is dead or damaged.

GCRF UK consortium (Kenya, Scotland, Grenada and Jamaica) US$24,000 for Jamaica to co-create our funding proposal to assess and mitigate the impact of pollutants in the mangrove food chain from up-stream runoff of pesticides and other residues (2020–2022).

GCRF UK/Royal Society ₤24,000 (2021–2024), to explore the impact of extreme weather events and climate change of early life development and long-term health, both cardio-metabolic and neurocognitive.

The mangrove restoration project has accomplished the first two major deliverables, namely, completion of a data-dense baseline survey and report which is now in hand. The second deliverable, using the baseline data which describe the current situation in the mangrove forest, and what accounted for the damage and death of half of it, to develop a restoration plan, is also complete. The implementation of the restoration and monitoring is ongoing.

Some Notable Events During the Year

UWI SODECO:

• co-hosted a workshop for early career researchers in Kingston on building resilience to climate change.
• hosted a visit to the mangrove restoration site by the UK Foreign Secretary, James Cleverly
• hosted a visit to the mangrove restoration site by the Board of the IDB.
• established its clinical centre in Lionel Town Hospital, Clarendon to provide health services within the context of translation research to charcoal burners and adolescents who were in early childhood during hurricanes Dean and Ivan that devastated the area, and
• hosted an Observer Editor’s Forum around the Mangrove Restoration Project attended by Minister Samuda.