Public Health

Research Network

A place to explore all things Public Health Research in the West Midlands

Who are we?

What do we do?

Hear from others working in Social Care, Local Authorities, and Public Health.

How can we support Public Health Research?

Funding Opportunities

Spotlight

Dissemination of Research

Research Design Service's new Equality, Diversion, and Inclusion toolkit

Events

Training

Express interest in the Public Health Research Network

Expression of interest

This platform aims to bring local authority practitioners and researchers together to share knowledge, thinking, and ideas about public health research.

We want to help you get involved in PH research and support building the research agenda throughout organisations across the West Midlands.

Who are we?

Bringing the public health research community together to share goals will develop a strong public health research culture in the West Midlands. The goal is to facilitate more population-led research to support evidence-based decision-making for practitioners. The challenge is to create improvements to address health inequalities and to help underserved communities access better services. In particular, we want to help public health practitioners in local authorities to become more research-active.

What do we do?

The National Institute of Health and Care Research (NIHR) Research Delivery Network (RDN) NIHR West Midlands RRDN supports the delivery of health and care research across the West Midlands region, providing the infrastructure that allows high-quality research to take place in our area so that both patients and public can benefit from new and better health outcomes. The NIHR wants to support public health and social care research across different settings.

We are funded by the Department of Health and Social Care and work in partnership with the NHS, social care, universities, other research funders, participants, and the public. We are able to provide advice, support, and assistance to enable your participation in high-quality research

This website is a space for exploring some of this work. We would like to invite organisations and services with an interest in public health research to click the express interest tab.

Hear from others working in Social Care, Local Authorities, and Public Health.

In these two short videos, we hear how others are supporting and developing a research culture.

Aim of Public Health Research

Bring together those who are supporting research engagement in public health and adult social care from across the West Midlands

Engage with community leaders, local authorities, and a variety of people from across the public health sector
Build relationships with individuals, groups, and partnerships with trusted advocates
Supporting underrepresented groups and young people to take part in research
Bring participants in public health research together
Supporting those in public health and local authorities in developing a research culture within their organisations
Raising awareness of research opportunities

How can we support Public Health Research?

People living in the West Midlands are best positioned to inform us what research is needed and how it can be implemented. The perspective of community members is important and often different from that of a researcher. We will:

Inform you of opportunities to take part in high-quality research
Support your service with study setup and delivery of research
Offer advice and support with research governance
Provide support from trained research staff
Collaborate with research projects
Provide access to free research training

Return to top of the page

Funding Opportunities

Spotlight

NIHR announces £25 million funding for the School for Public Health Research 2022-2027

The NIHR has reaffirmed its commitment to public health research by awarding a third round of funding to the NIHR School for Public Health Research (SPHR).

SPHR has been awarded £25 million from April 2022 to advance and extend the School’s current research themes of Children, young people & families; Public mental health; and Places & communities.

The School will continue to be led by Professor Ashley Adamson, Director of Fuse, the Centre for Translational Research in Public Health and NIHR Senior Investigator, and be joined by two new members in the University of Exeter and a consortium of the Universities of Birmingham, Keele and Warwick.

Dissemination of Research

Dissemination of research results is a vital aspect of the research process because it ensures that the highlights of the study are shared with the participants and that it is put to good use.

We want your feedback on how best we can improve the dissemination of research to the public.

Share your ideas here

Research Design Service's new Equality, Diversion, and Inclusion toolkit

The Research Design Service has developed a new Equality, Diversion, and Inclusion (EDI) toolkit to help support researchers to better understand how to embed EDI in research design and to meet the NIHR's EDI requirements. The toolkit advocates for best practice which goes beyond the NIHR's current requirements.

This toolkit recognises the inequalities which people face due to their protected characteristics. The Equality Act 2010 recognises nine protected characteristics: Race, Religion and belief, Age, Sex, Disability, Sexual Orientation, Gender Reassignment, Pregnancy and Maternity, and Marriage and Civil Partnership.

The EDI toolkit also recognises other important areas of EDI including: Socioeconomic status, Neurodiversity, Geography, Literacy, and Caring Communities. To access the EDI toolkit and find out more information please click here.