Fuse, the Centre for Translational Reseach in Public Health (renewal)

Public health research is about finding new and more effective ways to improve the population's health and prevent disease, and ensure that health is more fairly spread in the population. This is essential to a sustainable health care system, and also provides economic and social benefits. Fuse carries out world-class research to prevent disease, and improve health and well-being for all and close the gap between those with the worst health and the rest of the population. Fuse is a research centre in the North East of England, bringing together the expertise of staff and students at five universities (Durham, Newcastle, Northumbria, Sunderland and Teesside) and working closely with colleagues in the NHS, local government, voluntary and community sectors. 'Translating' the findings of the research carried out by Fuse so that it can meet the needs of these sectors is central to Fuse's mission. The context in which Fuse conducts its research is changing, with public health services moving to local authorities under the current Government's NHS reforms. Consequently, this is a particularly important time for this much needed 'translational' research. Fuse conducts its research in various ways, but these can be summarised as "develop, evaluate, and translate." In much of our research, these activities are carried out in parallel, working with public health services, so that research findings are immediately useful to the people working in the front line. Our research aims to tackle the major health problems facing people today, including obesity, heart disease and cancers, by trying to develop ways to encourage people to eat a healthier diet, exercise more, stop smoking, and consume alcohol in moderation (behaviour change research programme). People face these problems right through their lives and Fuse's research programme reflects this by researching key periods in the life-course. This starts by exploring how to provide a healthy start in early life through the critical period of pregnancy, through to growing families. For example we are conducting research on helping parents to recognise when their child is overweight, providing fun exercise in schools through dance, and exploring the effects of changes in the guidelines for school dinners. This research programme (early life and adolescence) goes through to teenage years and focuses on trying to reduce the risks of alcohol, drugs, and poor sexual health. In parallel to early life, maintaining and improving health in older age (healthy ageing research programme) has also been selected because of the importance of these stages in life in influencing longer term health. In this programme, we aim to find ways to promote longer, more active lives in good health. Another of Fuse's research strands (complex systems research programme), will try and understand the changes currently taking place in the health system and how these will impact on people, assessing the strategies being used to try to improve the people's health and well-being. It will also evaluate the policies being used to regulate public and private sectors to promote health. The health inequalities research programme conducts research to understand better why there is a gap between those with the worst health and the rest of the population, and to narrow this gap. We focus primarily on people living in more deprived areas, where there tend to be higher levels of many illnesses, from infections to heart disease and cancer. Of course many research findings are not always immediately adopted into practice in the real world. That is where Fuse is different. Fuse works hand-in-hand with those delivering public health services on the ground, so that they can more quickly access research findings to create value-for-money policies that have a real-life impact on people's lives. As well as being core to Fuse's mission and aims, this challenge is also progressed through the translational research programme.