The National Centre for Population Health and Wellbeing Research (Centre for Population Health), has been awarded funding to continue its work in Public Health Improvement.
The funding, awarded by Health and Care Research Wales, will further strengthen the Centre’s collaborative approach to understanding, evaluating and informing population health issues.
Established in 2015, the Centre for Population Health is a collaboration between Swansea, Bangor and Cardiff Universities and Public Health Wales. The team will continue to build on its life course approach to research. Moving forward the Centre will be providing an infrastructure to support health care professionals and researchers to better understand and use data held in Wales.
Professor Sinead Brophy, Centre Director, commented: “This funding will enable us to continue our work on helping to give children a healthy and safe start in life. There is considerable evidence that a person’s experiences in childhood play an important part in shaping their future – with early year’s child development being associated with good health and educational outcomes in childhood, and better health and employment outcomes in adulthood.
The UK population is changing with many people now expected to live and work longer. Our aim is to get a better understanding of health and ageing and how work and lifestyles can help improve a person’s quality of life. A direct impact of an ageing population is the increase in the number of people living with chronic illnesses, with this in mind the centre will be supporting research into arthritis, asthma, cardiovascular disorders, infection and injuries.
We are committed to ensuring that Wales is at the forefront of developing population health. As such, we will be focusing on helping health care professionals and researchers to better understand and use data held in Wales.”
Professor Kieran Walshe, Director of Health and Care Research Wales, said: “Investing in health and social care research in Wales is essential. Research has provided us with the evidence for the services and care we provide today, and future research will help develop new treatments and services to improve care for people and communities in Wales.
“This funding enables excellent research to continue in Wales; research that will make a real difference to people’s lives.”
For further information on The Centre for Population Health, visit www.NCPHWR.org.uk | @NCPHWR_Wales