Our mission is to discover innovative and inclusive ways to improve the health of people, places and communities, and to reduce health inequalities by developing and evaluating long-lasting and environmentally sustainable interventions.
Investing in a new network
Population Health Improvement UK (PHI UK) has been created with a £35 million investment from UK Research and Innovation (UKRI) to bring together expertise and insight from across research, public health and community organisations to boost research into sustainable and equitable population health improvement.
The investment is a major component of UKRI’s Securing Better Health, Ageing and Wellbeing strategic theme, which targets a priority challenge through a portfolio of related investments which leverage research disciplines across UKRI.
Read about our governance arrangements.
Improving healthy life
The health of populations is influenced by a complex interplay of individual, community, economic and societal factors. And despite the gains of healthcare in recent years, for many people, physical and mental health challenges persist. Across the UK, there remain large differences in life expectancy and years of life spent in ill health.
As well as the personal costs, these health challenges harm economic prosperity and threaten unsustainable pressure on our health services and wider society.
This means that we need to act now to create places and communities that can protect and sustain healthy lives for decades to come.
Taking a systems approach
PHI UK is joining this action by creating a holistic picture of the various influences on health and wellbeing, in order to develop and evaluate innovative and impactful interventions at the population level.
We are pursuing a systems approach to health improvement. Such an approach:
considers all the interacting parts of how the complex modern world affects our health
is driven by data and evidence
has an inclusive approach to incorporating different perspectives from across society.
Find out about collaborating with us.
Interconnected areas of research
PHI UK is leading on four initial areas of research, addressing separate but complementary challenges:
creating healthy urban spaces
supporting mental health and wellbeing
understanding and addressing the negative health effects of commercial products and practices
using modelling approaches to address urgent policy and economic challenges to health equity
Investing in research capacity
Across our research, PHI UK is developing plans and support to grow a new generation of future researchers and research leaders.
This will include supporting those who typically have not had the chance to apply their expertise to improving population health before. We are creating environments where these people can work together with researchers already established in this area, to create novel approaches to new and long-standing challenges.