Who are we?
The PHRESH (Public Health RESearch for Health) Consortium is a virtual research centre, working across three universities in the West Midlands: University of Birmingham, Keele University and the University of Warwick, and we are the only SPHR member situated in the Midlands. PHRESH is led by an executive team from across the three universities, made up of:
- Peymane Adab, Professor of Chronic Disease Epidemiology and Public Health (Birmingham)
- Emma Frew, Professor of Health Economics (Birmingham)
- Peter Kraftl, Professor of Human Geography (Birmingham)
- Priya Paudyal, Professor of Public Health (Keele)
- Sian Taylor-Phillips, Professor in Health Sciences (Warwick)
Our executive team receives great support from our Programme Manager, Lucy Oakey, and our SPHR Administrator, Alana-Mai Whatmore.
More information about PHRESH can be found on our website.
Our expertise in Children, Young People and Families (CYPF) research
PHRESH has a dynamic and multidisciplinary public health research community. Our vision is to improve the health and wellbeing of all people in our diverse region and beyond through world-leading public health research. Our expertise covers many areas of public health, including a strong track record of research relating to CYPF, and has a core underlying principle of reducing inequalities in health.
Across all our universities, PHRESH has an all-inclusive approach to impacting the health and well-being of CYPF. Our past and current research includes:
- reproductive and preconception health
- improving maternity care and breastfeeding support
- primary and secondary school-based research (e.g., obesity prevention, school food, mental health and wellbeing)
- children and their environments (e.g., urban mobilities, play, experiences of environmental change, the place of children in society, child abuse)
- children with complex needs (e.g., neurodevelopmental conditions, intellectual disabilities, musculoskeletal conditions, mental health, challenging behaviour)
- measurement of child health/illness
- delivery of healthcare services to children and young people
- the impact of smoking on children and young people
- young people and digital technologies.
PHRESH also has extensive experience in public involvement and engagement (PI&E), particularly at Keele, who have a Research User Group with over 150 members and advising on over 80 research studies.
Our involvement in the School for Public Health Research
Although we are new members of the SPHR, many of our researchers have got involved in this first year of the third term. Led by Miranda Pallan and Marco Bardus, the PHRESH Consortium CYPF leads, we have researchers co-leading and collaborating on a variety of CYPF and CYPF-linked projects currently being considered for funding.
Through these projects, we are collaborating with seven other SPHR members.
The projects we are involved in are:
Work Strand 1: Inclusive and sustainable environments for children’s, young people’s and families’ health and wellbeing
- Project 1.2: Reducing housing insecurity for families with children.
- Project 1.3: ‘Physical activity insecurity’ as experienced by LGBTQ+ children and young people living with deprivation: what would safe spaces for physical activity look like for this community?
Work Strand 2: Healthy start for life for young children and families
- Project 2.1: Intervention development and feasibility study to promote preconception health by health professionals to young women
- Project 2.2: Poverty proofing maternity care services
- Project 2.3: Exploring food insecurity in pregnancy in the UK to inform future public health intervention needs
Work Strand 3: Health-promoting and inclusive educational settings: Sustainable and inclusive research and interventions to build lifelong health
- Project 3.1: Evaluating the impact of an active school environment on children and young people’s health
- Project 3.2: Evaluation of Holiday Activity and Food (HAF) clubs
- Project 3.3: Data linkage of school-based trials to evaluate longer-term effects of school-based interventions
CYPF cross-programme research
- Intelligence for public health action to improve outcomes and address inequalities in children and young people’s health
CYPF-linked projects within Healthy places, healthy planet:
- Effects and mechanisms of traffic restriction schemes outside schools in Great Britain: a natural experimental study
- Public food procurement for school settings for health and environmental sustainability.
We are also getting involved with SPHR in other ways. For example, Peymane has taken on the role of Deputy Director of the SPHR, Peter co-leads the CYPF programme alongside Dougal Hargreaves from Imperial College London, and is supported by Kiya Hurley as CYPF Programme Coordinator. Additionally, Marie Murphy, Kiya Hurley and Bassit Malik are members of the Researchers Network (ResNet) committee and Nikki Evans is a member of the PI&E operations group.
We at PHRESH are delighted to be one of the newest members of SPHR, and we look forward to working with colleagues from other member institutions on a variety of projects and other initiatives over the coming years.