Peter Blair, Peter Fleming, Anna Pease, Sylvia Stoianova and Karen Luyt have managed to obtain funding for the PIONEER SUDC study (a PopulatION-basEd invEstigation to Reduce Sudden Unexpected Deaths in Childhood). They have been funded £240k by the charity SUDC UK to analyse the detailed data of over 900 unexpected childhood deaths collected via the National Child Mortality Database (NCMD) housed at UoB.

Carefully delineating between explained and unexplained deaths, comparing the background characteristics and circumstances surrounding the deaths and conducting qualitative interviews with bereaved parents will help signpost future investigations. As with the unexplained infant deaths there is no single cause but insights can hopefully be gained by identifying likely subcategories of death. The investigation begins in June 2025 for 27 months.