Public Health Network launched

The University today launched the PublicHealth @ Cambridge Research Network in order to draw together expertise in all aspects of population health across the arts, humanities, social and physical sciences, technology and biomedicine.

Researchers from across the University’s six schools and associated key partners will be connected across traditional barriers to catalyse new interactions and ways of thinking and enable a truly multidisciplinary approach to the challenges affecting population health.

Public health issues comprise some of the biggest global challenges of our time. According to the World Health Organisation (WHO), the main challenges facing public health in the twenty-first century include, economic crisis; widening inequalities; ageing population; increasing levels of chronic disease; migration and urbanization; and environmental damage and climate change.

And a recent study has found that Britain has fallen behind many Western countries on progress in managing preventable diseases. Five killer diseases - heart disease, stroke, cancer, lung and liver disease - account for more than 150,000 deaths a year among under-75s in England and the Department of Health estimates 30,000 of these are entirely avoidable.

The Vice-Chancellor, Professor Sir Leszek Borysiewicz, said: “Each of us is aware that average life expectancy has increased dramatically through the 20th century.  We are all beneficiaries of a greater understanding of public health.  Faced with the health challenges of tomorrow – diabetes, cardiovascular disease – it is vital that we put public health, and all the disciplines that support it, at the heart of Cambridge’s contribution.  This is one of the most important ways that ideas developed in Cambridge can change the world for us all.”

Maximising the population health benefits of Cambridge research is key, and the PublicHealth @ Cambridge Network can provide an important conduit to strengthen knowledge-transfer and translational outreach, working with colleagues in the new Public Health England agency and local, national and international public health policy makers and practitioners.

Professor Carol Brayne, Chair of the PublicHealth @ Cambridge Strategic Network and Director of the Cambridge Institute of Public Health (CIPH), said: “Our vision is for PublicHealth @ Cambridge to develop synergy across Cambridge in areas of public health importance such as international health, social and behavioural science and methodological advances.  We aim to achieve this by co-ordinating research and activities, as well as initiating new approaches and new programmes – from molecule to policy making, regional to global, campus to community.”

The Network will initially focus on the following themes: big data, ageing, equality, from animals to man and sustainability.

For additional information about the Network (www.publichealth.cam.ac.uk), please contact Dr Paula Frampton, Strategic Network Coordinator.