Group leaders: Jean Adams, David Ogilvie,
Jenna Panter and Martin White
Group news
Read news and blogs about this group’s research
Introduction
More active lifestyles and healthier diets reduce the risk of multiple chronic diseases. However, the environments we have created to live in — our cities, food and transport systems and workplaces, for example — are not always conducive to healthier lifestyles. It is possible to change people’s economic, physical and social conditions in order to support healthier behaviours, but we need more scientific evidence on how best to do this to guide public health action.
As part of the mission of IMS Epidemiology, we investigate the potential to improve the health of whole populations – irrespective of individual disease risk – by altering fiscal, physical or social environments to shift activity and diet patterns. This requires us to pay attention to the complex systems that generate and perpetuate ill-health and social inequalities in health, and to try to identify generalisable principles to guide intervention strategies in a range of contexts in the UK and beyond. These research questions drive our choice of methods and data – typically using a combination of epidemiological, public health and social science approaches – to study what happens when people’s circumstances change and what could be done to improve the outcomes. This enables us to understand which environmental or policy changes are more or less beneficial to health, who is likely to benefit most from them and which are likely to offer the best value for money.
Current research
Our research entails:
- Synthesising evidence from existing intervention and observational studies
- Evaluating environmental and policy interventions, particularly using natural experimental methods
- Understanding target behaviours, potential and actual interventions, and their relationships with structural determinants of health and related policy processes
- Developing concepts, theory and methods for future research.
Our research is supported by:
- MRC transition programme grant funding
- NIHR Population Health Career Scientist Award funding
- Other national research infrastructure funding: notably, we lead the Mandala Consortium, co-lead the Salient Consortium, and are co-investigators in the NIHR Public Health Policy Research Unit and the NIHR School for Public Health Research
- A variety of other project, fellowship and studentship funding
and is conducted in partnership with other research groups in IMS Epidemiology and beyond.
The content of this page remains under development. Examples of our current research will be added presently. Further information can be found by following the links to the individual researchers listed below.
Information for prospective PhD students
General guidance
We are very happy to consider enquiries to pursue a PhD within the Population Health Interventions group for October 2027 entry. General guidance on applying for a PhD in our department can be found here. This includes information about funding options and the application process and some frequently asked questions.
Before you begin
We enjoy hosting interested and enthusiastic PhD students in our group. However, the process of securing both an offer of a place to study and funding to support that offer is very competitive. Each year we receive hundreds of enquiries, shortlist around 10 candidates for interview and make offers to around five. Around half of those made an offer also secure funding. This means that no more than about two or three new students start PhD studies within our group each year.
What we are looking for
There are two routes to a PhD in our group. You can either (1) apply for one of our advertised opportunities that provide some ideas for areas we are particularly looking to work on, or (2) propose your own ideas. In either case, we are looking for academically excellent candidates who can generate original research questions that directly relate to, or are synergistic with, our existing work.
By academically excellent, we mean you will have at least a good 2.i (or equivalent) in your undergraduate degree. You will also have completed a master’s degree, or gained equivalent experience, that provides you with a good grounding in the content and methodological background required to pursue your proposed research questions. If you have not yet completed a master’s degree, please consider the Cambridge MPhil in Population Health Sciences.
To demonstrate that you can generate original research questions, you should propose these in any pre-application enquiry and in your application, with an outline of how you would answer them. Research questions that replicate our existing or recent work are unlikely to be considered original. Our existing research is described elsewhere on this page and the linked pages of individual researchers and projects.
Advertised studentships
This year we are advertising two studentships as part of the ESRC Doctoral Training Programme (CAM-DTP). More information on Rethinking evidence synthesis for public health within the PHOENIX programme is provided here.
Next steps
If you would like to make a pre-application enquiry, please identify one person from the list of potential primary supervisors below with whom your proposed research questions are best aligned. Email that person providing information on your previous degrees (with grades), any relevant professional or voluntary experience, and an outline of your proposed research questions. The recipient of your email will then advise you further. Please do not send similar emails to multiple members of our group. If we think another supervisor would be a more appropriate point of contact for you, we will redirect your enquiry internally. If you use generative AI to help you write your enquiry email, please carefully edit any output to ensure it is focused and concise.
Potential primary supervisors
Further content under development
We are in the process of updating the information below. Please check back later.
Here we give a few examples of our recent research to illustrate our overall approach, while the content of this page remains under development. Further information can be found by following the links to particular projects, or to the individual researchers listed at the bottom of the page.
Systematic reviews
We have argued for a more thoughtful approach to cumulating evidence from intervention studies in public health research, and we are gradually developing and demonstrating new ways of doing this. Our recent projects include a systematic review comparing ‘carrot’ and ‘stick’ approaches to changing travel behaviour, and a complexity-informed synthesis of how sugar-sweetened beverage taxes work to guide best-practice development.
Evaluation of interventions
Food systems
The prevention of childhood obesity has become a significant focus for some of our work, particularly in evaluation where much of our recent effort has been focused on key policies in the UK government’s childhood obesity plan (2016 and later iterations) including:
- Soft Drinks Industry Levy (SDIL). We have led a systems-based evaluation of whether, how and for whom the levy has an effect on health, the process by which the levy came about, and wider changes in public, political, societal and industry attitudes
- Planning policy to regulate takeaway food outlets. We have led an evaluation of the acceptability and impacts of takeaway exclusion zones around schools on retail, health and economic outcomes.
We also lead the Mandala Consortium, which aims to transform the urban food system and its relationship with the regional economy in the West Midlands. This entails mapping the local food system, prioritising and optimising the most powerful interventions, and evaluating and modelling their impacts.
Transport systems
We have recently conducted two smaller-scale evaluation studies:
- Promoting alternatives to the car in Healthy New Towns. We led this project which aimed to advance our understanding of individual and environmental approaches to promoting active travel and how these interact. It comprised the ICAN feasibility and pilot randomised controlled trial of financial incentives in Northstowe, the STEP study of how families make decisions about how children travel to school, and a third study of the experiences of policy makers and practitioners in developing guidance for, designing and implementing interventions
- School Streets and No Car Zones. We led this feasibility study of the acceptability, potential effectiveness, mechanisms and unintended consequences of the School Streets programme in Cambridgeshire and the No Car Zones established outside two schools in Cambridge.
We have also evaluated the impact of the expansion of cycle lane networks in Paris and Lyon using routinely collected data.
Understanding policy processes
We have examined government policy processes and the use of evidence for childhood obesity and how ‘the public’ is framed in policymaking for public health through PhD projects in our programme. We are also examining the public health implications of the business relationship between grocery manufacturers and retailers through a visiting fellowship with the Bennett Institute for Public Policy.
Observational studies
We are UK leads for the International Food Policy Study of food-related attitudes and behaviours. We are investigating new ways of purchasing takeaway food using online delivery services in the UK, and exploring the potential of extending this research to other countries. We are also investigating influences on takeaway use in the Fenland Study.
Developing theory and methods
We develop new ways of thinking about the topics we research, and new methods, resources and tools to enable us to better study the links between environment, behaviour and health. Examples of our recent work include:
- Agency in population health interventions. We have argued that population health interventions that make fewer demands on individuals may be more effective and equitable, but this remains to be definitively tested. We have led a project to theorise and categorise ‘who has to do what’ for interventions to achieve their effects, with a view to applying this in systematic reviews of intervention effectiveness, equity and acceptability
- Built environment context and change atlas (BECCA). We have led this multicentre MRC project to produce an online interactive atlas of environmental conditions, and change in those conditions, for Great Britain
- MenuTracker. We have established a database of nutritional information derived from online UK restaurant menus and used this to develop a takeaway ‘healthiness’ score.
We also co-wrote revised national guidance on using natural experiments to evaluate population health interventions.
Publications
See all Population Health Interventions publications on the MRC Epidemiology Unit Publications Database.
Other resources
Evidence for policy and practice
Other scientific resources
This research group was formed by merging the Dietary Public Health and Physical Activity and Public Health programmes. Their scientific content underpins our current research and is archived here:
- Dietary Public Health
- Physical Activity and Public Health
- Selected reading list on natural experimental methods
Group members
- Jean Adams – Professor of Dietary Public Health
- Olivia Alliott – Research Associate
- Miriam Alvarado – Wellcome Trust Postdoctoral Fellow
- Thomas Burgoine – Research Professor
- Emma Carey – Postdoctoral Research Associate
- Noah Cooke – PhD Student
- Elisabeth Demers-Potvin – PhD Student
- Natalie Egan – PhD Student
- Mike Essman – Postdoctoral Research Associate
- Louise Foley – Senior Research Associate
- Benjamin Hawkins – Senior Research Associate in Social Sciences
- Jody Hoenink – Visiting Scientist
- Catrin Pedder Jones – Postdoctoral Research Associate
- Nancy Karreman – Research Associate
- Viktorija Kesaite – Research Associate
- Caroline Kienast-von Einem – PhD Student
- Oliver Mytton – Honorary Senior Visiting Fellow
- David Ogilvie – Professor of Public Health Research
- Jenna Panter – Research Professor
- Kelly Parsons – Research Associate
- Richard Patterson – MRC Postdoctoral Fellow
- Nina Rogers – Visiting Scientist
- Alexia Sawyer – Research Associate
- Sarah Shaw – Research Associate
- Struan Tait – PhD student
- Susannah Tooze – PhD student
- Dolly van Tulleken – Visiting Scientist
- Martin White – Professor of Population Health Research & Programme Leader
Group alumni
- Emily Aguirre – Fulbright and Knox Scholar
- Lena Alexander – Data Analyst
- Roxanne Armstrong-Moore – Postdoctoral Research Associate
- Inka Barnett – PhD Student
- Adam Bostanci – Scientific Editor
- Anna Brugulat Panés – PhD Student
- Nick Bundle – Specialty Registrar in Public Health
- Chole Clifford Astbury – PhD Student
- Annalijn Conklin – PhD Student
- Silvia Costa – Research Associate
- Caroline Croxson (née Jones) – Research Associate
- Katherine Cullerton – Research Associate
- Will Cuningham – Postdoctoral Research Associate
- Katrine Ejlerskov – Research Associate
- Alex Faria – Research Assistant (Secondment)
- Hannah Forde – Visiting Scientist
- Kate Garrott – Visiting Scientist
- Anna Goodman – Postdoctoral Research Fellow
- Cornelia Guell – Career Development Fellow
- Samantha Hajna – Visiting Scientist
- Amelia Harshfield – Data Analyst
- Eva Heinen – Investigator Scientist
- Vivien Hendry – Career Development Fellow
- Yuru Huang – Research Associate
- David Humphreys – Career Development Fellow
- Nick Jones – PhD Student
- Matthew Keeble – Research Associate
- Jo Kesten – Research Associate
- Craig Knott – Research Associate
- Emma Lawlor – Postdoctoral Research Associate
- Anna Le Gouais – PhD Student
- Bochu Liu – Research Associate
- Eva Maguire – PhD Student
- Calum Mattocks – Career Development Fellow
- David Pell – Research Associate
- Tarra Penney – Research Associate
- Rick Prins – Career Development Fellow
- John Rahilly – Research Associate
- Shannon Sahlqvist – Career Development Fellow
- Kai Schulze – PhD Student
- James Smith – Specialty Registrar in Public Health
- Lindsey Smith – PhD Student
- Lee Smith – PhD Student
- Alexandra Williams – Research Assistant
- Eleanor Winpenny – Career Development Fellow
- Wing Wong – Data Analyst
- Christina Xiao – PhD Student
- Amy Yau – PhD Student