Richard Lee-Kelland’s project proposal is ‘An examination of the sociocultural factors and promotion of extended breast feeding in the Solomon Islands’.

Professor Peter Dunn is currently Emeritus Professor of Perinatal Medicine and Child Health at the University of Bristol. In 1983, he endowed the University with funds to award an annual perinatal prize (now a bursary) to encourage Bristol medical students to undertake a perinatal project during their fifth year. The underlying aim of the bursary is to promote the concept of the continuum of care required by the foetus as it emerges at birth as a newborn infant.

Commenting on the bursary, Lee-Kelland said: 'The study is going to look at local knowledge and attitudes towards breast feeding in the Solomon Islands. Infant mortality is a very high in that country and promoting exclusive and extended breast feeding could really help to reduce infant deaths from diarrhoea and other diseases. I am very much looking forward to getting out there and starting work on the project.'