Public Health Research

What does the funding stream focus on?

The evaluation of interventions delivered outside the NHS (e.g. by local authorities, employers, schools, charities, community organisations) intended to improve population health or to reduce health disparities.

Funding Stream Key Information

PHR Key Information

Director: Professor Brian Ferguson (from July Dr Adam Briggs)

Aim: To evaluate practical interventions where the primary outcome is health related and helps reduce health inequalities.

Funding: Commissioned and researcher-led, no fixed limits on duration or funding, but all costs need to be justified and demonstrate value for money.

Process: Two-stage process. The process takes 7 months.

Success rate: There is a high drop-out rate; 30% not in remit, 38% get shortlisted and of those 40% are funded.

Funding Panel Observations

Summary of Panel Observation Tips

Looking for large scale studies that cover issues of major strategic importance and will likely lead to changes in practice.
Study should provide new knowledge on the benefits, costs, acceptability and wider impacts of the intervention.

The key issues with applications:

They lacked clarity, detail, and consideration of inequalities and threats to successful delivery.
Tokenistic PPI, lack of CTU involvement, unclear commercial partner involvement.
Fatigue for particular types of intervention or research methodologies.
Availability/appropriateness of outcome measures, particularly in relation to food insecurity.

They were supportive of applications that:

Make a clear case that the intervention being evaluated is going to make a real difference at a population level and is important for demonstrating impact at scale.
Clear narrative about the intervention and what it would deliver in terms of actual products or deliverables.
The panel also emphasized the importance of the research question presenting both value and impact at a large scale for population health.

Latest Dates

Funding Deadlines

Call	Webinar	Outline submission deadline	Outcome date	Full submission deadline	Outcome date
NIHR James Lind Alliance Priority Setting Partnerships rolling funding opportunity (PHR Programme)		25 April 25	July 25	Aug 25	Nov 25
NIHR NICE rolling funding opportunity (PHR Programme)		25 April 25	July 25	Aug 25	Nov 25
PHR Programme researcher-led		25 April 25	July 25	Aug 25	Nov 25
Continuing areas of research interest to the PHR Programme		25 April 25	July 25	Aug 25	Nov 25
Increasing uptake of vaccinations in populations where there is low uptake		25 April 25	July 25	Aug 25	Nov 25
Unstructured activities (play) for children and young people		25 April 25	July 25	Aug 25	Nov 25
Interventions to deliver inclusive economies		25 April 25	July 25	Aug 25	Nov 25
Suicide prevention		25 April 25	July 25	Aug 25	Nov 25
Interventions to support men in prison or post-release		25 April 25	July 25	Aug 25	Nov 25
Mass media content		25 April 25	July 25	Aug 25	Nov 25
Healthy Homes		25 April 25	July 25	Aug 25	Nov 25
Decarbonising the health and social care system		26 March 25	June 25	Aug 25	Nov 25

Examples

PHR Example

A multicentre cluster randomised controlled trial to evaluate the effectiveness and cost-effectiveness of a school-based peer-led drug prevention intervention (The FRANK friends study)

Funding: £1,465,055.20 2019-2022

Aim: to introduce and evaluate FRANK friends (the intervention) which is a school-based peer-led drug prevention intervention. In each school, students in UK year 9 (aged 13-14) will be asked to nominate fellow students who they think are influential. Students in receipt of the top 17.5% of nominations are asked to become peer supporters.

Other PHR Examples

Does active design increase walking and cycling? Evaluation of a natural experiment examining whether moving into housing in East Village increases family levels of physical activity, particularly walking and cycling
Assessing the impact and cost-effectiveness of needle/syringe provision on hepatitis C transmission among people who inject drugs: an analysis of pooled datasets and economic modelling
EXploring the Impact of alcohol Licensing in ENgland and Scotland (EXILENS): A mixed-method, natural experiment evaluation of public health engagement in alcohol premises licensing and impact on alcohol-related harms