Policy Support

The Centre for Exercise, Nutrition and Health Sciences has been working with the Chief Medical Officer on guidelines for physical exercise during self-isolation:

• Production of exercise and COVID19 guidelines advocating for once a day activity for those eligible and guidance on how to remain active while at home for UK Chief Medical Officers. This guidance was adopted as national policy across the UK Four Nations and announced as the first round of lockdown measures. 

• Production of sport specific guidance: Golf and COVID19 guidelines for R&A, through PGA's CMO - launched in mid-May.

• Quality assurance of local physical activity materials (UK CMOS Rapid Expert Reviews) - This free service was conceived and developed by EHNS staff and launched second week of April. We offered a fact "check and send" service for any exercise, sport or physical activity resources (written, on line, videos) for UK national and local agencies and NGOs. We set up Four National Centres to coordinate activity across ecah Home Nation and a network of 45 UK based experts to suport fact checking. Our UOB Centre coodinates the progarmme. This service is current still running and has received over 20 referrals. One resource was launched by PHE for older adults and has had a 2.5 million print run and national distribution across the UK. We are looking to esatblish this as a permant and centrallly funded resources and has raised our Centre and UOBs profile nationally with public health and sports agencies.

Expert Advice

• MOD’s Response to Domestic Abuse in the Context of Coronavirus referenced Dr Emma Williamson.  File reference: 20200417-Brief_DomesticAbuse-O. 17th April 2020.

• Letter to the Chancellor to raise Child Benefit to £50 to help families through the COVID-19 pandemic – Professor David Abbott, Dr Eldin Fahmy, Professor David Gordon (also Director of Bristol Poverty Institute) from the School for Policy Studies were among the signatories.

• COVID-19 PoliMap - A global repository of policy responses to tackle COVID-19. A timeline of country-by-country responses to the COVID-19 outbreak. Contributor: Maria Vega Salas, Assistant Teacher, School for Policy Studies, Ana Ortega PhD researcher in Nutrition, Exercise and Health, University of Bristol, Sahar Khodabakhsh, PhD researcher in the School for Policy Studies.

Civic engagement activity

Academics in the Faculty for Social Sciences and Law are drawing on existing relationships with voluntary and community sector organisations to explore the sector’s role in the current crisis and future recovery.

ReCOVer draws on expertise and partnerships from existing projects, incl. the Everyday Integration Project, the Inclusive Economy Initiative, the City Fellows programme, the Social Justice Project, and Bristol Digital Futures Institute.

Involved academics are collaborating to co-ordinate the research response and partner with community organisations to collect evidence of emerging needs across the city. They aim to capture issues impacting the community anchor organisations as well as the individuals that are part of their communities.

Members of the Covid Civic Response Group are working alongside ReCOVer to ensure that the approach aligns with wider partnership work across the University. Learning is fed back into both the University and wider efforts across the city (e. g. through the City Office and BCC) for city recovery planning, and will support and shape the University’s civic response to emerging needs across the city in the short and longer term.