Members of the MRC Integrative Epidemiology Unit engage with members of the public to share their research and benefit from others' insights. They encourage discussion about their research methods and findings through an exciting programme of activities in partnership with festivals, schools and community groups.
Festivals
Festivals enable us to showcase Unit-wide research in different cultural contexts and increase our reach to public groups outside the usual science engagement sphere. They enable us to share research and ideas related to our research, inspire future scientists, and represent the University as a whole.
Over the years we’ve built strong links with Bristol-based and UK wide science festivals including FUTURES, Einstein’s Garden at the Green Man Festival, Keynsham Music Festival and Pint of Science. Recent highlights include:
Einstein’s Garden – Green Man Music Festival
Since 2013 the researchers from the MRC IEU have braved the Welsh weather to bring a varied mixture of science stalls the Einstein’s Garden. In August 2024 our stall looked at the effect that our environment has on our health. Over the course of three days we played games, made bunting and had great conversations with around 1150 people of all ages.
FUTURES
In September 2023 we set up a stall in Cabot Circus shopping centre to help the public explore the challenges for health research if some groups of people are more likely to participate in medical studies than other groups of people.
Keynsham Music Festival
We made our first visit to Keynsham Music Festival in July 2024. Our stall formed the entry point to the festival's "Wellbeing Village" and set a research context for why people should care about their health. We gave visitors a taster of a range of aspects of population health research, including decorating giant chromosomes with pictures of inherited characteristics on scraps of jeans, as well as our ever-popular Wheel of Fortune, which we use to demonstrate the different factors that can influence our health.
Pint of Science
Read this case study about an evening on "Wandering Wombs" that two IEU researchers gave in May 2022.
School engagement
Classroom events
Through school engagement we hope to make lasting impressions on local school students and inspire the next generation of health and computational researchers. By showcasing the career paths of our own researchers who come to the MRC IEU from diverse backgrounds including mathematics, computer sciences, statistics and medicine, we present students with alternative routes into careers in health sciences.
Over the years we’ve developed a series of workshops and engagement activities that are suitable for school students of all ages, many involving hands-on participation through engagement with our giant wooden models. We always aim for plenty of laughter. If you would like us to visit your school, please contact sian.c.harris@bristol.ac.uk.
Patient and public involvement and engagement
Patient and public involvement and engagement (PPIE) plays an increasingly important role in our work. This might be on an ongoing basis, for example, the User Reference Group within our affiliated Integrative Cancer Epidemiology Programme, or a one-off basis, as the following case studies illustrate:
Talking to members of the public gave me ideas for future research.
It's a great way to learn more yourself. By explaining concepts you get a much deeper understanding.
Watch this short video to hear IEU researchers explaining what an epidemiologist does.
I like that we could move around to select our choices rather than putting our hands up for example; this made it super memorable.