Department of Public Health and Policy

Head of Department: Anne Mills
Department Administrator: Wendy Knowles
Department Secretary: Sarah Toming
Department Administrative Assistant: Aileen Lovat
Taught Course Director: Hannah Babad
Research Degrees Director: Martin Gorsky
Research Degrees Administrator: Susan Quarrell
Distance Learning Course Director: Ros Plowman
Computing Officers: Mick Hussey, Caroline Fernyhough
Honorary staff: Honorary Professors
Tel: +44 (0)20 7927 2432
Fax: +44 (0)20 7436 3611

The aim of the Department of Public Health and Policy is the improvement of global health through research, teaching and the provision of advice in the areas of health policy, health systems and services, and individual, social and environmental influences on health. Interests and activities embrace the health needs of people living in countries at all levels of development.

The Department is the largest multi-disciplinary public health group in Europe, with a total of over 220 staff including epidemiologists, public health physicians, economists, policy analysts, anthropologists, sociologists, historians, psychologists, statisticians and mathematicians.

The Department's research programmes, with an annual spend of over £7m, focus on public health problems of importance both globally and in the UK, and build on an extensive network of collaborations. The research programmes exploit multidisciplinary and multi-method approaches, generate new knowledge for specific contexts and test transferability to different settings, and engage with policymakers and providers of health care to ensure research is relevant and translated into practice.

The Department is renowned for its influential research in diverse areas concerned with global health such as:

• Understanding the policy-making process in health and using this understanding to improve the quality of public decision-making
• Evaluating ways of improving health system performance in countries across the world, from the UK to fragile states such as Afghanistan
• Improving the quality, organisation and management of health services
• Using economic and epidemiological analysis to guide disease prevention and treatment in areas such as malaria, HIV/AIDS, TB, vaccine-preventable diseases, child health, and cancers
• Pioneering ways of using routine data to evaluate and improve service quality in areas such as surgery
• Understanding the influences on health of individual behaviours including sexual practices, drug use, and gender violence, and evaluating behavioural change interventions
• Assessing the effect of environmental factors on health, especially climate change, air pollution, housing and transport, and evaluating public health policies in these areas
• Understanding global influences on health and health systems including the role of transnational companies such as the tobacco industry, and the spread of pandemic diseases.

The Department hosts School Centres in the areas of History in Public Health, Research on Drugs and Health Behaviours, Spatial Analysis in Public Health, Global Change and Health, Health of Societies in Transition (ECOHOST), and Gender Violence and Health. In addition staff participate in Centres based in other departments, notably the Malaria Centre and the Centre for the Mathematical Modelling of Infectious Disease.

The Department's teaching programmes encompass both London-based and distance learning MSc programmes. Around 130 students every year take the London-based MSc in Public Health, following a general public health stream or focusing on health services management, health promotion, environmental health, health services research, or health economics. A further 100 or so students follow MSc programmes which are cross-departmental - the MScs in Public Health in Developing Countries and Control of Infectious Diseases. A joint programme with the London School of Economics, the MSc in Health Policy, Planning and Financing, offers the opportunity for around 40 students each year to focus on the disciplines relevant to health policy. Around 800 students worldwide follow the Department's MSc Public Health by distance learning, combining their normal work with part-time study. These varied MSc programmes offer an unparalleled degree of choice, both amongst the teaching modules offered by Department staff and those offered by the other two departments.

The Department has a thriving research degree programme, of around 140 students. The PhD programme is designed for those who plan a career in research, while a DrPH provides doctoral level training for those who will be health decision-makers. Students commonly divide their time between study in London with their supervisor, and undertaking a research project, often in another country.

In keeping with its focus on the interface between scientific research, policy and practice, department staff are engaged in a very wide range of policy-influencing roles, including membership of key government advisory groups, leadership of professional bodies, membership of research funding bodies, and provision of expert advice to global health institutions.