
Professor Frank De Vocht
BSc, MSc, PhD
Current positions
Professor in Epidemiology and Public Health
Bristol Medical School (PHS)
Contact
Media contact
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Research interests
Frank de Vocht is a Professor in Epidemiology and Public Health, and joined the Centre for Public Health, which is part of Population Health Sciences at Bristol Medical School in 2014. He is funded by the NIHR School for Public Health Research and NIHR Applied Research Collaboration West (ARC West).
He obtained his PhD from Utrecht University in the Netherlands and subsequently worked at the International Agency for Research on Cancer in Lyon, France, and the Centre for Epidemiology/Centre for Occupational and Environmental Health at the University of Manchester, before coming to Bristol.
He has over 120 peer-review publications broadly covering the areas of public health, exposure measurements and assessment, and radiation, environmental and occupational epidemiology. He has contributed to book chapters on epidemiology, exposure assessment and the effects of electromagnetic fields on humans. His work is funded by NIHR, the European Union and several charities, and he specializes in epidemiology of lifestyle, environmental, and occupational risk factors. His current research interests are two-fold: the evaluation of natural experiments in public health, specifically in the context of alcohol policies, and secondly the effects of ionising and non-ionizing radiation on human health.
Frank de Vocht is a Committee Member of the UK Committee on Medical Aspects of Radiation in the Environment (COMARE) and of the EMF Committee of the Health Council of the Netherlands (Gezondheidsraad).
Projects and supervisions
Research projects
Assessing the impact of COVID-19 on the physical activity of Year 6 children and their parents: Identifying scalable actions to mitigate adverse impacts and provide rapid evidence to policy makers
Principal Investigator
Role
Co-Investigator
Description
Physical activity is important for health among children and their parents. The COVID-19 pandemic and the associated social changes, such as the lockdown, have had a marked impact on physical…Managing organisational unit
School for Policy StudiesDates
01/04/2021 to 30/06/2022
Maximising Wellbeing Living Everyday Life with Long-term conditions
Role
Co-Investigator
Description
Developing and evaluating a care and support planning intervention for people with multimorbidity in primary careManaging organisational unit
Bristol Medical School (PHS)Dates
01/01/2019
Unity Sexual Health rapid STI testing, diagnostic and treatment service evaluation
Role
Co-Investigator
Description
Sexual health services are facing financial constraints due to reduced local authority budgets. At the same time, there is increased demand for HIV and sexually transmitted infection (STI) testing. In…Managing organisational unit
Bristol Medical School (PHS)Dates
01/10/2017 to 30/09/2021
Thesis supervisions
Investigating the use of mentoring in improving the health, educational outcomes and employability of young people
Supervisors
The epidemiology of health and wellbeing in the workplace
Supervisors
Using a systems thinking approach to define, understand, and explore the commercial determinants of dietary behaviour and obesity in adolescence, a mixed methods study
Supervisors
Publications
Recent publications
20/03/2023Guidance on the Use of Complex Systems Models for Economic Evaluations of Public Health Interventions
Health Economics
Impact of rapid near-patient STI testing on service delivery outcomes in an integrated sexual health service in the United Kingdom
BMJ Open
Integrated working in local authority decision-making about air quality: a qualitative study in Southwest England
Journal of Public Health (United Kingdom)
Screen-viewing behaviours of children before and after the 2020-21 COVID-19 lockdowns in the UK
BMC Public Health
Second opinions for patients with a persistent depressive disorder
Journal of Psychiatric Practice