About us

Crowd of people walking in street

The NIHR Public Health PRU (PH-PRU) was established on 1st April 2019 with the aim of meeting Department of Health & Social Care (DHSC) needs for timely, relevant and robust public health evidence. Its research is delivered within four broad themes:

  • Understanding what determines people’s physical and mental health, and behaviours (including multiple risk behaviours), and why there are differences between population groups
  • Identifying, developing and evaluating effective PH interventions (including developmental and evaluative research, and reviewing existing evidence)
  • Generating evidence to inform strategies to reduce inequalities in health, and
  • Developing new theory and methods, and new ways to apply them to the challenge of evidence-based PH policy (such as from PH economics).

These four themes underpin our PH-PRU programme and inform our responsive work.