Population Health and Wellbeing

The Centre for Population Health

This pan-Wales centre focuses on a life-course approach and has two main themes, Healthy Development and Healthy Working Life. We have secured more than £30m for projects including empowering teenagers to change their local area (British Heart Foundation-funded), examining impact of COVID-19 on primary schools (funded by Medical Research Council), improving health in rural communities (funded by Nuffield Foundation), using advanced machine learning methods to improve time to diagnosis for people with arthritis (UCB Pharma Limited). We are part of the National Core Studies addressing COVID-19 (Medical Research Council) and are working internationally with the World Health Organisation (WHO) Collaborating Centre.

Researchers looking at diabetes research

Population Health and Wellbeing Research Focus

Our research examines interventions that support people’s health and wellbeing throughout life, for example, our early years work includes Born In Wales, a birth cohort study of children born during COVID-19 and beyond, HAPPEN an all Wales primary school network with over 200 schools, and ACTIVE, which works with teenagers to improve wellbeing and access to active healthy environments for all.

Healthy Development

This programme includes understanding what works for improving maternal and infant health from our Born In Wales study, evaluating interventions to support children pre-school, and our all-Wales primary school network (HAPPEN) to evaluate what works in the primary school setting to improve health and wellbeing.

Healthy Working Life

We research a variety of different health challenges faced by adults through their working life. These challenges range from chronic health conditions, such as arthritis, asthma, cardiovascular disorders, infection and injuries, medication use and patient care. We also examine how best to support particular groups such as teachers, farmers and those living and working in rural communities, NHS and front-line workers.

Public Health and Wellbeing Improvement to the Population

The Centre works in partnership with Public Health Wales to help turn the research produced into improvements in people’s health and wellbeing, and speed up this process of translating research into real-world benefits. This is achieved by generating an evidence base for public health policies, services and interventions and optimising take-up on a scale that makes a population-level impact.

Research Outcomes

We use this approach to help gain further insight into how we can use "big data" to improve the health, wealth and opportunities of the population. Using ananoymised data our world leading research works to improve the life and wellbeing of the population in the UK, we have worked with the farming community in Wales, Scotland, Northern Ireland and England to improve our understanding of environmental pressures, generating better health outcomes, and improving farming household income. We have significant work streams aimed at improving maternal and infant health and working for greater insight into long-term chronic conditions.

Improving the lives of UK Farmers

The Economic and Social Research Council’s Administrative Data Research UK (ADR UK) has invested £600,000 to better understand farming households. Public sector data across the UK on agricultural and land use activities, are linked with demographic, educational and health data, creating the first UK-wide de-identified data platform focused on agriculture. We aim to provide evidence that will help government support farmers, their households and communities and co-develop the work with the farming community in terms of the research questions and the interpretation and communication of findings. This work will inform future policy decision making, potentially leading to better responses to challenges such as responding to environmental pressures, generating better health outcomes, and improving farming household income.

Associated Collaborative and Industry Partners

Public Health Wales
Bangor University
Cardiff University
Children In Wales
Rural health and Care Wales
Play Wales
British Heart Foundation

Associated Research Projects

Sail Databank
Administrative Data Research Wales

Affiliated Researchers

Our Research Impact

Samples in a machine with researcher on computer in the background

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