The School for Public Health (SPHR), funded by the National Institute for Health Research (NIHR) and established in April 2012, forms part of the Government’s Public Health White Paper ‘Healthy Lives, Healthy People’ strategy. 

Its primary aim is to increase the evidence base for effective public health practice by drawing on expertise from 8 UK centres [announced today].  These include researchers from Bristol’s School of Social and Community Medicine and the Centre for Exercise, Nutrition and Health Sciences, who have been awarded over £2 million to undertake priority research focusing on the health of adolescents, improving emotional health and physical activity as well as reducing inequalities in health.

Rona Campbell, Professor of Public Health Research at Bristol’s School for Social and Community Medicine, said: “We are delighted to have been selected to undertake such a pivotal role in the future development of the public health.”

The School’s research will help build closer relations between researchers and public health practitioners and inform what public health developments works practically, can be applied across the whole country and better meets the needs of policy makers, practitioners and the public.

The SPHR is led by Jon Nicholl, Professor of Public Health Research at the University of Sheffield, comprises public health researchers from the Universities of Bristol, Cambridge, Sheffield, University College London, the LiLaC collaboration: the University of Liverpool and the University of Lancaster), Fuse, The Centre for Translational Research in Public Health: a collaboration between Newcastle, Durham, Northumbria, Sunderland and Teesside universities, the Peninsula College of Medicine and Dentistry, and the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine.