The NIHR is one of the main funders of public health research in the UK. Public health research falls within the remit of a range of NIHR Research Programmes, NIHR Centres of Excellence and Facilities, plus the NIHR Academy.
NIHR awards from all NIHR Research Programmes and the NIHR Academy that were funded between January 2006 and the present extraction date are eligible for inclusion in this dataset. An agreed inclusion/exclusion criteria is used to categorise awards as public health awards (see below).
Following inclusion in the dataset, public health awards are second level coded to one of the four Public Health Outcomes Framework domains. These domains are: (1) wider determinants (2) health improvement (3) health protection (4) healthcare and premature mortality.
More information on the Public Health Outcomes Framework domains can be found here.
This dataset is updated quarterly to include new NIHR awards categorised as public health awards.
Inclusion criteria
NIHR awards are categorised as public health awards if they are determined to be ‘investigations of interventions in, or studies of, populations that are anticipated to have an effect on health or on health inequity at a population level.’ This definition of public health is intentionally broad to capture the wide range of NIHR public health awards across prevention, health improvement, health protection, and healthcare services (both within and outside of NHS settings).
This dataset does not reflect the NIHR’s total investment in public health research. The intention is to showcase a subset of the wider NIHR public health portfolio. This dataset includes NIHR awards categorised as public health awards from NIHR Research Programmes and the NIHR Academy.
This dataset does not currently include public health awards or projects funded by any of the three NIHR Research Schools or any of the NIHR Centres of Excellence and Facilities. Therefore, awards from the NIHR Schools for Public Health, Primary Care and Social Care, NIHR Public Health Policy Research Unit and the NIHR Health Protection Research Units do not feature in this curated portfolio.
Disclaimers
Users of this dataset should acknowledge the broad definition of public health that has been used to develop the inclusion criteria for this dataset. This caveat applies to all data within the dataset irrespective of the funding NIHR Research Programme or NIHR Academy award.
Please note that this dataset is currently subject to a limited data quality review. We are working to improve our data collection methodologies.
Please also note that some awards may also appear in other NIHR curated datasets.
Further information
Further information on the individual awards shown in the dataset can be found on the NIHR’s Funding & Awards website here. Further information on individual NIHR Research Programme’s decision making processes for funding health and social care research can be found here.
Further information on NIHR’s investment in public health research can be found as follows:
NIHR School for Public Health here.
NIHR Public Health Policy Research Unit here.
NIHR Health Protection Research Units here.
NIHR Public Health Research Programme Health Determinants Research Collaborations (HDRC) here.
NIHR Public Health Research Programme Public Health Intervention Responsive Studies Teams (PHIRST) here.