The NPEU is a multi-disciplinary research unit which was established at the University of Oxford in 1978.
Our mission is to conduct methodologically rigorous research to provide evidence to improve the care provided to women, babies and families during pregnancy, childbirth, the newborn period and early childhood as well as promoting the effective use of resources by perinatal health services
This week's The Lancet Child & Adolescent Health includes an article describing standardised scores for the Parent Report of Children's Abilities, Revised (PARCA-R) questionnaire. The PARCA-R is recommended for routine use in the UK to screen for developmental delay in children born preterm and can be completed by parents in 10 to 15 minutes.
A new website has also been lauched featuring an online version of the questionnaire and a pre-programmed calculator for deriving the standardised scores.
Dr Louise Linsell at NPEU collaborated with colleagues at the University of Leicester and other universities to standardise the scores.
We can now quantify a child’s developmental level relative to the UK population of two year olds, and identify advanced or delayed development. The standardised PARCA-R is freely available for parents to use and has been translated into 14 languages. It provides a reliable, cost-effective alternative to other developmental assessments that can be costly to administer.
The Policy Research Unit in Maternal Health and Care (PRU-MHC) was established in 2010 with funding from the Department of Health and encompasses such projects as:
The NPEU Clinical Trials Unit (NPEU CTU) is a fully registered UKCRC Clinical Trials Unit and typically runs a number of large multi-centre Randomised Controlled Trials, such as:
The NPEU also conducts Social Sciences, Health Economics and Epidemiological Research (SHEER) which includes on-going influential studies such as: