Population Health Sciences

Research groups

Child and Adolescent Health

The Centre for Child and Adolescent Health is a joint initiative between the University of Bristol and the University of the West of England (UWE) which aims to promote the academic study of child health through inter-professional collaboration. Staff at the centre include senior academics and researchers from Bristol and UWE, and clinician-educators from North Bristol Trust and University Hospitals Bristol and Bath.

Our research is structured into themes:

• Child Development and Disability
• Children with Complex Health Needs
• Child and Adolescent Injury

Children and young people's participation and international child health are cross-cutting themes.

The school's research programme includes lifecourse epidemiology (studying how exposures at different stages of the lifecourse interact to produce patterns of chronic disease) and clinical epidemiology (eg investigating the prognosis of HIV-infected patients starting antiretroviral therapy).

Major themes within epidemiology include:

• Cancer (cancer screening, aetiology, diagnosis, prognosis)
• Cardiovascular disease (aetiology, prevention and management)
• Infectious disease modelling
• Mental health and neurodegeneration
• Nutrition and metabolic disorders (aetiology and prevention of poor nutrition at a population level.

At the Centre for Ethics in Medicine we examine ethics in medicine and bioscience, working together with colleagues from various disciplines (law, palliative medicine, psychiatry, primary care). The main areas of interest are:

• Educating and supporting healthcare professionals (clinical ethics, research ethics, ethics education, professionalism)
• Chronic illness, terminal illness and long-term care (end-of-life decision-making, older people, children and young people, psychiatry, health and social care policies)
• Biotechnologies and biosciences (genetics, human enhancement, reproductive medicine, human tissue, surgical ethics)

This programme uses molecular (eg genomic, epigenomic, metabolomic) data from large cohort studies to investigate the molecular mechanisms of disease, to aid understanding of the relationships between life-course exposures and adult diseases, and to develop methods for disseminating and introducing these findings into practice. Major themes in the MRC Integrative Epidemiology Unit include:

• Genome-wide association studies
• Mendelian Randomisation
• Epigenetics/epigenomics
• Metabolomics
• Copy number variation
• Next-generation sequence analysis
• Bioinformatics
• Population genetics
• Systems biology
• Laboratory-based genetic epidemiology

We are a leading centre for methodological and applied research into the effectiveness, efficiency and acceptability of healthcare and health improvement. We actively contribute to health service and public health practice and policy-making.

Our Centre for Public Health includes the UKCRC DECIPHer Centre and we are partners in the NIHR School for Public Health Research. We also host the NIHR Health Protection Unit in Evaluation of Interventions. Our major strengths include the design and conduct of randomised controlled trials led by the MRC CMRC ConDuCT trials methodology hub, the Bristol Centre for Surgical Research and the Bristol Randomised Trials Collaboration. We have vibrant research groups in systematic reviews and evidence synthesis, qualitative methods, biostatistics, health economics and outcomes research.

The Centre for Academic Primary Care (CAPC) is one of the eight leading centres for primary care research in England that form the NIHR School for Primary Care Research (NSPCR). We conduct high-quality research of practical benefit to patient care and NHS decision-making.

CAPC has an important role in developing research capacity in primary care through hosting studentships and fellowships funded by the NIHR and other funders.

The Centre for Academic Mental Health brings together researchers working on mental health, addiction and suicide research within the school. Our research investigates a wide range of biological, psychological and social factors and how they might influence the causation and course of psychiatric disorders.

Our strengths include:

• Epidemiology, especially longitudinal studies to investigate depression, anxiety, suicide, addiction, psychosis and autism spectrum disorders
• Randomised controlled trials, particularly the treatment of depression and anxiety in primary care
• Systematic reviews and meta-analyses, especially interventions for common mental disorders

In addition, we have interests in the biological basis of psychiatric disorder.

Careers

The majority of our final-year research students express a wish to continue in the field of research. Since 2000, ten PhD students have progressed to professor and ten to lecturer or senior lecturer. Among recent PhD graduates, 88 per cent now work in the academic sector, with the remainder working in the health and private sectors. In addition to excellent research training, we our students develop a range of transferable skills to ensure they have the best possible opportunities whatever their chosen career.