Award details

Communicating information re food allergies (INFORMALL)

Reference	BBS/E/F/00041565
Principal Investigator / Supervisor	Professor Clare Mills
Co-Investigators / Co-Supervisors
Institution	Quadram Institute Bioscience
Department	Quadram Institute Bioscience Department
Funding type	Research
Value (£)	30,133
Status	Completed
Type	Institute Project
Start date	01/01/2003
End date	31/12/2005
Duration	36 months

Abstract

Whilst only around 1-2 % of European adults and between 5-7% of children have been diagnosed as suffering from food allergy, the perception amongst consumers is that such food reactions are a common condition. Indeed around 30% of the population claim to suffer from some form of food allergy; most of this group employs self-diagnosis and consequently implements treatment strategies (usually avoidance of certain foods), which are unsupervised by a medical practitioner. This introduces the problems associated with incorrect diagnosis, the true basis of ill-health not being identified, and consequently individuals may not receive appropriate treatment. Furthermore unsupervised dietary restriction may result in individuals suffering from the adverse health effects associated with consuming a nutritionally unbalanced diet. Such fears and concerns, coupled with the very real dangers posed by allergenic foods for the truly severely allergic consumer, have made good provision of information on food allergies to the public, together with dissemination of allergy research findings, an imperative. The main objective of this project is to develop communication strategies in the food allergy area, which will promote the provision of visible, credible sources of information appropriate to different stakeholders including consumers, industry and regulators. This will be met by working towards several subsidiary, complimentary objectives as follows: 1. Defining the communication issues relevant to the food allergy area; 2. Developing a set of recommendations and strategies for communication of food allergy information; 3. Developing a Food Allergy Information Platform (FAIP) incorporating a collated, credible electronic database of information on allergenic food materials of plant and animal origin; 4. Application of communication strategies within the arena of current food allergy research in Europe funded at a national level and through an informal networking of the RTD projects on food allergy funded through FPV. This will involve dissemination of information accruing from these research efforts to the general public. It will also ensure exchange of information between the different research efforts, maximising the benefits from the national and European research funded in the food allergy area. It also aims to develop links with prospective member states from Central Europe and wider, particularly to co-ordinate research between Europe and North America.

Summary

unavailable

Committee	Closed Committee - Agri-food (AF)
Research Topics	X – not assigned to a current Research Topic
Research Priority	X – Research Priority information not available
Research Initiative	X - not in an Initiative
Funding Scheme	X – not Funded via a specific Funding Scheme

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