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A new Welsh-Government-funded research project will help strengthen families in post-pandemic India.

‘Strengthening health systems to support family resilience in post-pandemic India’ will be led by health and social care researchers at USW in collaboration with Manipal University Jaipur, the All-India Institute of Medical Sciences in Rishikesh, and CMC Vellore. It will follow the model of FRAIT Wales, which formulated a uniform way of assessing the resilience of families and the impact on children’s health and development.

Now incorporated into Welsh Government’s Healthy Child Wales Programme, which is designed to support parenting and healthy lifestyle choices, FRAIT Wales is used by health visitors across Wales to support their decision making and care planning around whether further intervention is needed. 

Professor Carolyn Wallace, principal investigator on the project, said: “There is no standard tool for community nurses in India to assess resilience in families with children under the age of six, so this project will help to work out what support a family needs in order to strengthen their ability to bounce back from crisis.

“There are 158 million children in India under the age of six whose lives could be positively impacted by this research. We are excited to share our findings and expertise, and see how colleagues in India can use it for the benefit of families with young children.”

The project aims to create a peer reviewed publication of the family resilience concept in India, a report and plan for further long-term FRAIT India products. 

It is funded by Global Wales Research Mobility Fund, a new fund set up to support the mobility of researchers between universities in Wales and international countries to facilitate research opportunities. Global Wales priority countries, including European countries, the United States, Vietnam and India should be prioritised wherever possible.

USW's researchers are Professor Carolyn Wallace, Professor David Pontin and Dr Wahida Kent.

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