Fuse joins fellow Centres of Excellence at UK public health summit

Public health professionals from across the country recently gathered in Edinburgh for the sixth annual UKCRC Public Health Research Centres of Excellence conference.

The event gives researchers from across the centres an opportunity to showcase their work, network and learn from each other and engage with research users.

The two day conference (19-20 November) at the University of Edinburgh was this year themed ‘collaborating for better public health and wellbeing’ and Fuse research featured prominently throughout a programme that brought together the ground breaking public health research of the centres.

To coincide with the event, Fuse created a number of research briefs which augmented the work presented at the conference. 

Presenters were faced with the challenging task of using the Pecha Kucha (Japanese for ‘chit-chat’) presentation style that uses 20 slides which advance automatically every 20 seconds. 

Energy drinks

Fuse associate Shelina Visram presented her research on energy drinks entitled: 'They should go in their own aisle where children are not allowed!: A mixed methods study on children and young people’s consumption of energy drinks.'  A Fuse brief related to this research can be found here.

Incentives

Emma Giles, another associate member of Fuse, also presented her research at the conference. Her presentation was entitled: 'Acceptability of financial incentives and penalties for encouraging uptake of healthy behaviours: interviews with UK policymakers.'

We have created three new Fuse briefs on the use of incentives to improve health:

• Do rewards and punishments improve vaccination rates in pre-schoolers?
• Are financial incentives accepted for promoting healthy behaviours?
• Financial incentives could help people make healthier lifestyle choices

Toward the end day one, Fuse Director Professor Ashley Adamson took part in a debate on whether or not academics should try to influence policy.

On day two of the conference, Fuse hosted a Workshop on knowledge exchange and public engagement with fellow UKCRC Centre of Excellence DECIPHer.  This involved Fuse’s Professor Rosemary Rushmer and Mandy Cheetham amongst others.

The expert ‘clinics’ featured a session from Fuse members Sonia Dalkin and Monique Lhussier on realist method and two other surgeries on Q methodology (Sarah Hill) and applied qualitative methodologies in public health (Emily Henderson and Shelina Visram).

Citizens Advice Bureau and health

There were opportunities throughout to view posters showing research taking place at each of the centres.  This included Monique Lhussier’s poster charting the impact of Citizens Advice Bureau activities on health.  A Fuse brief is available here which summarises this project.

Delegates also enjoyed dinner and ceilidh on the evening of the first day.

 

Other presentations and posters

Presentations:

Thursday

• Age-related inequalities in national public health, technology appraisal and clinical guidance: thematic content analysis – Lynne Forrest
• Evaluation of the implementation of a complex intervention (babyClear) to promote increased smoking cessation rates among pregnant women in maternity care – Ruth Bell

Friday

• Developing the ‘Wellbeing in Shildon’ survey in collaboration with local stakeholders: a pilot study in County Durham, England – Shelina Visram
• Health-related Quality Of Life In school children: Association with aerobic fitness, physical activity and BMI – Liane Azevedo
• The emerging role of takeaway Online Ordering Platforms: A qualitative study of vendors’ and customers’ experiences – Louis Goffe
• Understanding interpersonal & commercial drivers of drinking behaviour in young adolescents (aged 13-17): A qualitative interview study – Professor Eileen Kaner, Fuse Senior Investigator
• Responsive (academic) research services: more than a post box for policy & practice? Reflections on two years of collaborative working with AskFuse – Peter Van der Graaf
• A co-production approach to public health evaluations in North-East England – Grant McGeechan

Posters:

• Process evaluation of a natural experimental intervention to improve smoking cessation rates in pregnancy – Professor Janet Shucksmith
• Commissioning or implementing outreach for hard to reach groups: a decision making tool – Monique Lhussier

For more information please visit the conference website or catch up with all the action as it happened on Twitter thanks to this helpful storify of the tweets put together by hosts The Scottish Collaboration for Public Health Research and Policy (SCPHRP).

Find out more about Fuse research.

Last modified: Wed, 09 Dec 2015 09:54:37 GMT

Fuse is a research and evaluation active organisation and your data may be used for these purposes in unspecified projects.  If you do not want us to use your data, please contact Peter van der Graaf at p.van.der.graaf@tees.ac.uk.