Frequently Asked Questions

You can support UWI SODECO by making donations, participating in their events, or collaborating on research projects. Contact them directly for more information on how to contribute.

Projects are funded by international organisations and private sector donors.

Research findings are disseminated through academic publications, conferences, public reports, and social media channels.

You can contact UWI SODECO via email at uwisodecosfs@gmail.com or mdoffice@uwisodeco.com, or by phone at (876) 581-2309 or (876) 314-8913.

Interested parties can contact UWI SODECO through their email addresses or phone numbers provided on the website for collaboration opportunities. You can reach out to uwisodecosfs@gmail.com or mdoffice@uwisodeco.com and (876-581-2309)

The latest news and updates can be found on the UWI SODECO website and their social media pages.

UWI SODECO is an international  research charity affiliated with The University of the West Indies, based on the UWI Mona Campus in Jamaica. It consists of two main divisions: Solutions for Medicine (SFM) and Solutions for Society (SFS), focusing on medical research and socio-economic challenges respectively.

Solutions for Society addresses socio-economic and environmental problems using scientific research to develop sustainable interventions and solutions.

Solutions for Medicine focuses on research to treat and prevent long-term health problems caused by early life adversities such as malnutrition.

Featured projects include the Blue Carbon Restoration Project, and initiatives under the Blue Economy supported by the Inter-American Development Bank, EXCORE Project funded by Nutriset and the NUCORE Project funded by Wellcome Leap.

The Mangrove Restoration Project focuses on restoring mangroves along Jamaica's coastline to provide essential ecosystem services and protect against environmental degradation.

This project aims to restore mangroves along the 40 km coastline in South Clarendon, which are crucial for providing ecosystem services and combating climate change.

Along the south coast of Jamaica there is about a 50 km long coastline that ought to have healthy mangroves for all the ecosystem services these marine forests provide. However of the >3500 hectares of mangroves along this coast,

>1600 are dead and much of the rest is imperilled. Major contributors to the death of the mangroves include, changes in hydrology arising from coastline alterations after large

storms, falloff in agriculture and hence irrigation water flows, human impact through ill-conceived engineering works such as roads and train tracks that bisect mangroves; and last, not least, and an important factor for sustainability of the mangroves after we have rehabilitated them…..felling of mangroves trees to produce charcoal by local communities. Thus we have launched a project to use site specific diagnostics, to inform restorative interventions.

A grant from the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB) has provided support (2020-2027) for UWI SODECO SFS to develop and execute a project to sustainably restore where damaged these large acreages of mangroves in southern Clarendon. UWI SODECO is also collaborating with GOJ and the private sector to raise resources to invest in enhancing the resilience of the people in this south Clarendon area.

UWI SODECO values world-class professionalism in scientific research, focusing on early-life origins, cardio-metabolic and neuropsychological health, and environmental issues. The team fosters research excellence through training, mentorship, and career development, utilizing resources from a global research network.

UWI SODECO will be guided by three distinct sets of principles:

1. Core principles that describe our foundational values;

2. Intellectual principles that guide our decisions about the work we undertake; and

3.  operational principles that describe how we do business.

By 2025, UWI SODECO aims to use global scientific leadership within its network to inform new strategies for preventing and treating health problems stemming from a poor start to life and to increase environmental resilience.

To be a global leader in transdisciplinary research and the promotion and conduct of intellectual discourse that together inform approaches to assure human health within the context of sustainable and resilient environments.

UWI SODECO aims to use science to help prevent and treat long-term health problems caused by poor nutrition early in life. We also focus on solving important social and economic issues through scientific research.

1. To undertake inter- and transdisciplinary research and intellectual discourse that informs the prevention, cure or mitigation of that cluster of disorders characterised by impaired brain development, cognition, and behaviour, as well as chronic cardiovascular and metabolic diseases as they are all caused by early life adversity

2. To embed these approaches within the context of the environment and ecosystems, simultaneously addressing negative interactions that endanger both human and environmental health within an integrated ecological system.

3. To use systems approaches to enhancing ecosystems that simultaneously in one dimension safeguard the coastal environment and in another, influence health and wellbeing of inhabitants.