Supporting a uK SucceSS Story: The impacT of - Research Councils ...

A healthy legacy
Recognising the importance of ensuring a legacy following
the London 2012 Olympic and Paralympic Games a unique £10
million centre for sport and exercise medicine is being set up in
the East Midlands as part of Olympic-year government plans to
promote health and fitness. The Centre will be one of three hubs
that form the UK’s first National Sports and Exercise Medicine
Centre of Excellence. The aim of the Centre is to conduct research
into ‘exercise as medicine’, increase public awareness of this and
improve the health of patients with chronic diseases.
The Centre will also help encourage people to be more active
and will provide treatment for injuries caused by exercise
and conditions associated with lack of exercise. This will help
people who are injured return to physical health and work
quickly. The Centre also hopes to encourage people to use
physical exercise to cope with existing medical conditions, such
as diabetes. The Centre will be run by a network of partners
including Loughborough University, the University ofNottingham,
the University of Leicester, Nottingham University NHS Trust,
University Hospitals of Leicester NHS Trust and Nottinghamshire
Healthcare NHS Trust.
The Olympic Regeneration in East London (ORiEL) is a five
year NIHR-funded quasi-experimental study, investigating the
social and health legacy of the Games. At the start of the study,
questionnaires will be given to approximately 3,000 school
children, as well as their parents, in Newham (the main Olympic
borough) and comparison Boroughs of Tower Hamlets, Hackney
and Barking and Dagenham. Data will be collected on a range
of topics, but will primarily assess participants’ health and
wellbeing, neighbourhood change, social and economic status
and participant’s thoughts and feelings about the Games and its
legacy. Children and parents will be revisited two further times in
2013 and 2014 to assess how their lives have changed over time as
a result of the Games. In addition 20 families will be the focus of
an in-depth ethnographic study in Newham, where researchers will
spend time with these families capturing the experience of London
2012 – the build up to it, during the event and after it has finished.
The findings will give an insight into the real impact of the Games
on the daily lives of people in East London with a focus on health,
such as physical activity and psychological well-being; and the
social and economic determinants of health, such as employment
and income. Led by Professor Steven Cummins, the ORiEL team is
made up of three postdoctoral researchers and ten investigators
from Queen Mary, University of London, the London School of
Hygiene and Tropical Medicine and the University of East London.
SECTION two : Health and Wellbeing 29