About the Centre for Public Health and Wellbeing

We take a whole systems approach to create healthy and sustainable environments that promote wellness, and recognise the wider determinants of health and wellbeing. We are passionate about our mission to improve health, narrow health inequalities and prevent the spread of communicable and non-communicable diseases in community populations.

Our multidisciplinary research in social work and social policy focuses on the interfaces between community development and participation, community safety and design of place, health, wellness and wellbeing, global futures and policy, in scholarly and applied contexts. 

We prepare our students to lead in whole systems and across sectors. The centre has significant strategic partnerships with organisations across the NIHR infrastructure and within Health Education England for capacity public health workforce development and public involvement. These include the NIHR Applied Research Collaboration (ARC), Bristol Health Partners (BHP), Health Integration Teams (HITs), the Health Protection Research Unit (HPRU) and the Bristol Biomedical Research Centre (BRC) and West of England Academic Health Science Network (WEAHSN).

Our strategic topic areas and cross-cutting themes are:

• Community development
• Evaluation and evidence
• Global health research
• Health and wellbeing
• Healthy and sustainable environments
• Public involvement and engagement
• Workforce development.

Funders include:

• National Institute for Health Research - Global Health Research Programme
• National Institute for Health Research, UK Prevention Research Partnership
• Wellcome Trust
• Health Education England
• UK Central Government, Local and Health Authorities
• BIG Lottery
• Public Health England
• UK charities.

There is a strong history and tradition of multidisciplinary public health research and teaching at UWE Bristol. Our MSc Public Health programme, created in 2000, has been running for over two decades and lies at the heart of much of what we have achieved.

Strong in terms of our multidisciplinary approach, our focus on systems leadership, our links with service and practical applications extend opportunities to students and sustain our excellent reputation. Our alumni are diverse and spread across over 40 countries. UWE Bristol is a training location for Specialty Registrars on the five year Public Health Training Programme and a location for bursaries awarded by Health Education England.

Our programme is accredited by the international Agency for Public Health Education Accreditation (APHEA).

We believe research should matter; that is, have value for participants and stakeholders as well as academics and funders. This is how we achieve relevance and impact. We undertake research that makes a difference to practice. We want to influence policy. We want the public –society– to be involved in building assets in their communities, and to benefit from our work. We want to create change – we believe in social justice and equality of opportunity globally. Perhaps most of all, we want to help those in society that are most vulnerable and affected by structural inequalities across the life-course.

Research in public health and wellbeing reflects systems thinking, partnership working and synergies between different professional and academic contributions to public health. Our research is translational and aspires to contribute to real world scenarios, therefore aiming to enable ethical and reflexive contributions to policy and practice.

For more information, please contact Professor Jane Powell.