Back in November 2019, Drs Jean Zhang and Ilse Bloom started visiting the almost 300 HCS participants who agreed to meet our two researchers at their homes for the Nutrition and Physical Activity Study (aka NAPA) and talk about diet and physical activity. Unfortunately, the COVID-19 pandemic and subsequent lockdown have put a halt to the home visits but not to our research, with our researchers converting their face-to-face talks to phone calls. Perhaps unsurprisingly we have been told that many aspects of our participants’ lifestyles have changed considerably, and for this reason, we decided we should find out more about how our cohort participants have been affected by the current situation. Many NAPA participants have already agreed to a further telephone interview about their experiences during the COVID-19 pandemic and our HCS research team have now started calling participants and talking with them about the practical and emotional challenges of the pandemic. We hope that the information we will gather will help find what things might help, practically and emotionally. Many thanks to those who have agreed to participate!
