Centre for the Evaluation of Public Health Interventions

What's this Centre called?

Centre For The Evaluation Of Public Health Interventions, or CEPHI for short.

Why create this new Centre?

Research on the development and evaluation of public health interventions is central to the School’s mission to contribute to the improvement of health worldwide. While the School already has a strong record in intervention research, we need to respond to a number of important challenges in order to maximise our effectiveness.

What are CEPHI's aims?

To create a centre of excellence in the development and evaluation of public health interventions that can both assist our communication with the outside world and help to overcome some of the current internal obstacles to collaboration.

What are CEPHI's specific objectives?

To facilitate:

• bringing together staff working on intervention research to promote new collaborative effort, including grant development
• building on multidisciplinary capacity so intervention research can draw more effectively on the full range of disciplinary skills needed to maximise its effectiveness
• promoting innovations in methodology linked to intervention research
• strengthening capacity within the School to undertake syntheses of research findings.
• sharing support services, including trial coordination, database design and data management
• sharing expertise in the development as well as evaluation of new interventions
• sharing experience and best practice between staff involved in intervention research

Who can be involved?

All School staff and research students with an interest in public health intervention research

How does association with CEPHI affect membership of existing research units?

Not at all. As in other School-wide centres, staff and research students associated with CEPHI will remain full members of their current departments and units.

How will CEPHI achieve its objectives?

• Through meetings, workshops, seminars and retreats.
• By establishing a website to provide a portal to the wide range of intervention research being undertaken in the School.
• By providing a School-wide forum for the discussion of research strategy in the area of public health interventions and the development of relevant methodologies
• By encouraging closer links between intervention researchers throughout the School to facilitate discussion of ideas and problems, and to ensure sharing of best practice
• By facilitating new initiatives that cross disciplinary, departmental and unit boundaries

Where is CEPHI?

Partly in the North Courtyard Building, as the Wolfson Foundation has provided some funds towards the new building linked to the creation of the centre, which will accommodate some groups and individuals whose work falls within CEPHI’s scope

Mainly throughout the School, as CEPHI will essentially be a “virtual” centre, similar to other School-wide centres.

Initial Steering Group

• Jack Dowie
• Diana Elbourne
• Andy Haines
• Richard Hayes
• Betty Kirkwood
• Ian Roberts