Complexity in Health Improvement

We know that many factors influence health and health inequalities and the work of this Unit covers social, economic, environmental and cultural determinants of health. This programme is designed to look across this and the multiple interdependent factors at play. We want to provide leadership on the development of new research methods to evaluate programmes that aim to improve health and reduce inequalities in health, and we want to identify how and why programme effectiveness may vary. This is important since decision makers and those designing services need to understand where to target effort and investment. It’s imperative that we can identify what works, for whom, under what circumstances and why; this is the focus of our work in this programme. We will prioritise evaluations of interventions that tackle obesity and alcohol use; use new technology; or target health behaviour among those with serious mental illness. There also needs to be a better understanding of whether specific interventions and programmes can be transferred to different settings, target groups, or the problem to be addressed, without losing their effectiveness. To do this we will need to identify what elements make it possible for a programme to be modified in order to work or indeed which elements means transferability may not be effective. We will further develop and apply methods to understand and simulate how multiple interdependent factors come together in complex adaptive systems that generate heath inequalities and are resistant to change. This will include a focus on social networks and on drinking behaviour. Staff training, developing advanced courses, and leading collaborative networks of fellow researchers will be delivered in order to improve our professional capacity to develop and evaluate complex public health programmes and understand complex systems.