Peymané Adab FFPH is a British physician who is a Professor of Public Health at the University of Birmingham. She leads the Institute of Applied Health Research Chronic Disease Management Team. Adab investigates the epidemiology and management of obesity and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease.

Peymané Adab
Alma materUniversity of Birmingham
University of Liverpool
Known forPublic health
Scientific career
InstitutionsUniversity of Birmingham
University of Hong Kong
ThesisCervical cancer screening : public health implications for Hong Kong (2002)

Early life and education

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Adab grew up in Macclesfield. She studied medicine at the University of Liverpool, before moving to the University of Birmingham to specialise in public health.[1] In 1996 she was appointed clinical lecturer at the University of Hong Kong. Adab returned to the United Kingdom in 1999, where she embarked on her doctoral research at the University of Birmingham. As part of her doctorate Adab studied the public health implications of cervical cancer screening in Hong Kong. Her research resulted in the development and deployment of a systematic screening programme.[citation needed]

Research and career

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In 2004 Adab was appointed a lecturer at the University of Birmingham, where she was promoted to professor in 2013.[2] Her early research considered the impact cervical cancer screening and passive smoking on public health. Smoking and passive smoking are the leading cause of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease. In 2007 she estimated that 2 million people living in China at the time will die from passive smoking.[3]

Adab has investigated the epidemiology of COPD in the United Kingdom. She has studied the impact of diagnosing chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) in primary care. Whilst COPD is common, it is frequently undiagnosed, and Adab has argued that both clinicians and patients need access to more information.[4]

The World Health Organization have recognised that obesity is one of the most serious but preventable public health challenges. Adab has worked on obesity prevention programmes since the early 2000s. She has said that childhood obesity is particularly difficult to manage as parents often do not “think children can be overweight,”.[5] In 2016 Adab investigated the diets of primary school students, and found that they were consuming four times the daily recommended sugar levels; and that 40% of their sugar intake came from sugary drinks.[6]

Adab studied the effectiveness of public health interventions to prevent childhood obesity in China, where the prevalence of childhood obesity has increased rapidly, from 1% for boys and girls in 1985 to 28.2% for boys and 16.4% for girls in 2015.[7] She used Medical Research Council guidelines to conduct the Chinese Primary School Children Physical Activity and Dietary Behaviour Changes Intervention (CHIRPY DRAGON) study, which found that the body mass index was lower and the proportion of children who consumed 5 A Day was significantly greater in the cohorts who underwent an evidence-based prevention programme. The year-long, multi-component CHIRPY DRAGON intervention made use of behavioural-change approaches and family engagement, with a focus on improving grandparents' knowledge of childcare.[7] Adab showed that Chinese children who get less sleep are more likely to have high body mass indexes.[8][9]

In 2020 Adab was one of a team of researchers who studied the impact of The Daily Mile, a physical education intervention for school children, on childhood obesity.[10] The Daily Mile encourages school students to do 15 minutes of exercise during the school day, and despite there being no evidence of its benefits, has been adopted by 10,500 schools and nurseries around the United Kingdom.[10] The body mass index of participating students was measured at the start, after 4 and then again after 12 months. She found that The Daily Mile had a small positive impact on the body mass index of children who took part, and was particularly cost-effective for girls.[10]

Adab analysed the demographics of people infected by SARS-CoV-2, looking to better understand who becomes most ill with coronavirus disease.[11] She combined two large studies; one looking at the first people in the United Kingdom who tested positive, and another of seventeen million patients in UK primary care. Both studies found that women, white people and normal-weight people were less likely to become infected by coronavirus disease.[11] Adab called for more exploration into how coronavirus disease exacerbated socioeconomic inequalities in the United Kingdom.[11]

Selected publications

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  • Jolly, Kate; Lewis, Amanda; Beach, Jane; Denley, John; Adab, Peymane; Deeks, Jonathan J.; Daley, Amanda; Aveyard, Paul (3 November 2011). "Comparison of range of commercial or primary care led weight reduction programmes with minimal intervention control for weight loss in obesity: Lighten Up randomised controlled trial". BMJ. 343: d6500. doi:10.1136/bmj.d6500. ISSN 0959-8138. PMC 3208022. PMID 22053315.
  • Yin, P; Jiang, CQ; Cheng, KK; Lam, TH; Lam, KH; Miller, MR; Zhang, WS; Thomas, GN; Adab, P (1 September 2007). "Passive smoking exposure and risk of COPD among adults in China: the Guangzhou Biobank Cohort Study". The Lancet. 370 (9589): 751–757. doi:10.1016/S0140-6736(07)61378-6. ISSN 0140-6736. PMID 17765524. S2CID 56491.
  • Adab, Peymané; Rouse, Andrew M.; Mohammed, Mohammed A.; Marshall, Tom (12 January 2002). "Performance league tables: the NHS deserves better". BMJ. 324 (7329): 95–98. doi:10.1136/bmj.324.7329.95. ISSN 0959-8138. PMC 64507. PMID 11786455.
  • Aveyard, Paul; Lewis, Amanda; Tearne, Sarah; Hood, Kathryn; Christian-Brown, Anna; Adab, Peymane; Begh, Rachna; Jolly, Kate; Daley, Amanda; Farley, Amanda; Lycett, Deborah (19 November 2016). "Screening and brief intervention for obesity in primary care: a parallel, two-arm, randomised trial". The Lancet. 388 (10059): 2492–2500. doi:10.1016/S0140-6736(16)31893-1. ISSN 0140-6736. PMC 5121130. PMID 27789061.

References

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  1. ^ "Professor Peymané Adab MD, MPH, MBChB, FFPH, FHKCCM". University of Birmingham. Retrieved 17 May 2020.
  2. ^ "Directory: Peymane, Adab | NIHR". www.nihr.ac.uk. Retrieved 1 March 2022.
  3. ^ "Second-hand smoke to kill 2 million Chinese: report". Reuters. 30 August 2007. Retrieved 17 May 2020.[dead link]
  4. ^ Haroon, Shamil; Jordan, Rachel E.; Fitzmaurice, David A.; Adab, Peymane (28 August 2015). "Case finding for COPD in primary care: a qualitative study of the views of health professionals". International Journal of Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease. 10: 1711–8. doi:10.2147/COPD.S84247. PMC 4559237. PMID 26357469.
  5. ^ Fleming, Amy (12 August 2019). "'No food should be taboo': how to tackle your child's weight – without giving them a complex". The Guardian. ISSN 0261-3077. Retrieved 17 May 2020.
  6. ^ "Sugar-sweetened beverages dominant source of free sugar for young children". www.healio.com. 6 June 2016. Retrieved 17 May 2020.
  7. ^ a b Li, Bai; Pallan, Miranda; Liu, Wei Jia; Hemming, Karla; Frew, Emma; Lin, Rong; Liu, Wei; Martin, James; Zanganeh, Mandana; Hurley, Kiya; Cheng, Kar Keung (26 November 2019). "The CHIRPY DRAGON intervention in preventing obesity in Chinese primary-school--aged children: A cluster-randomised controlled trial". PLOS Medicine. 16 (11): e1002971. doi:10.1371/journal.pmed.1002971. ISSN 1549-1676. PMC 6879117. PMID 31770371.
  8. ^ "Late bedtime and lack of sleep lead to overweight children in China". ScienceDaily. Retrieved 17 May 2020.
  9. ^ Wang, Jiao; Adab, Peymane; Liu, Weijia; Chen, Yajun; Li, Bai; Lin, Rong; Liu, Wei; Cheng, Kar Keung; Pallan, Miranda (13 June 2017). "Prevalence of adiposity and its association with sleep duration, quality, and timing among 9–12-year-old children in Guangzhou, China". Journal of Epidemiology. 27 (11): 531–537. doi:10.1016/j.je.2016.11.003. ISSN 0917-5040. PMC 5608611. PMID 28623055.
  10. ^ a b c "The Daily Mile™ programme could help schools' tackle childhood obesity". University of Bristol. 28 January 2020. Retrieved 17 May 2020.
  11. ^ a b c Jordan, Rachel E.; Adab, Peymane (15 May 2020). "Who is most likely to be infected with SARS-CoV-2?". The Lancet Infectious Diseases. 20 (9): 995–996. doi:10.1016/S1473-3099(20)30395-9. ISSN 1473-3099. PMC 7228712. PMID 32422197.