NPRI partners launch £10m funding call to tackle major health threats
Friday 3 September, 2010
A £10 million fund has been committed by The National Prevention Research Initiative (NPRI), managed by the Medical Research Council (MRC), in its drive to prevent some of the UK’s most prominent diseases and conditions, such as cancer, heart disease, diabetes, obesity, stroke and dementia.
Funded through a partnership of 16 public sector and charity organisations, the NPRI aims to develop successful, cost-effective measures that reduce people’s risk of developing major diseases. The fourth phase of NPRI funding focuses on preventing disease by tackling lifestyles that are detrimental to health such as poor diet, inadequate physical activity, smoking and alcohol consumption, and on the environmental factors that influence those behaviours.
Dr Janet Valentine from the MRC which coordinates the initiative, said:
“Prevention is always better than cure, and that is the premise on which the NPRI was built. Since 2004 NPRI partners have committed £33million to preventive research and this latest phase of funding will enable cross-disciplinary research with a view to developing, testing and evaluating effective strategies that will influence people’s behaviour for the good of their health. We particularly welcome studies that include a strong element of joint or communal exposure, characteristic of community or population-based interventions.”
Full details can be found at: www.mrc.ac.uk/Fundingopportunities/Calls/NPRI4
Researchers wanting more information should visit www.npri.org.uk or contact Dr Marlie Ferenczi at the MRC on marlie.ferenczi@headoffice.mrc.ac.uk. The deadline for submitting outline applications is 4pm on 3rd November 2010.
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For more information please contact the MRC press office on 0207 6376011 or email: pressoffice@headoffice.mrc.ac.uk
Notes to editors:
1. NPRI funding partners are: Alzheimer’s Research Trust; Alzheimer’s Society; Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council; British Heart Foundation; Cancer Research UK; Chief Scientist Office, Scottish Government Health Directorates; Diabetes UK; Economic and Social Research Council; Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council; Health & Social Care Research & Development Office for Northern Ireland; Medical Research Council; The National Institute for Health Research; The Stroke Association; Wellcome Trust; Welsh Assembly Government and World Cancer Research Fund.
