News from PHR

Professor Catherine Law to head up NIHR Public Health Research programme

Professor Catherine Law of the UCL Institute of Child Health has been appointed Director of the National Institute for Health Research Public Health Research (NIHR PHR) programme. Professor Law will take up her new position on 1st October 2008.

The NIHR Public Health Research programme is launching in autumn 2008 to evaluate a wide range of public health interventions. It has been designed to provide new knowledge on the benefits, costs, acceptability and wider effects of non-NHS interventions intended to improve the health of the public and reduce inequalities in health.

Professor Law has a wealth of experience in public health having trained in paediatrics and academic child health, completed a doctorate at the Institute of Child Health, and conducted postdoctoral studies in maternal and child health at Johns Hopkins School of Hygiene and Public Health, USA. She has worked at the Medical Research Council Environmental Epidemiology Unit at the University of Southampton and with regional and national government. She is now Professor of Public Health and Epidemiology at UCL Institute of Child Health and is also an honorary consultant (in public health medicine) in Great Ormond Street Hospital NHS Trust, and Chair of the Public Health Interventions Advisory Committee of the National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence (NICE).

Professor Law’s main research interests are in child public health (particularly physical growth), inequalities in health, and the use of research for public policy.

The PHR programme’s first call for proposals will be in mid-November and will close in January 2009. For further details and to register your interest in the programme email info@phr.ac.uk

Notes for editors

The NIHR PHR programme will be managed by the NIHR Evaluation, Trials and Studies Coordinating Centres (NETSCC), based at the University of Southampton alongside other NIHR Programmes including the NIHR Health Technology Assessment Programme. Further details about the call for research proposals and the remit of the PHR programme are available from www.phr.nihr.ac.uk

The NIHR Public Health Research (PHR) Programme will have two modes of operation. Most funding will be in response to applicants' proposals, but there will also be commissioning capacity to advertise prioritised topics, themed calls and linked research projects.

The National Institute for Health Research provides the framework through which the research staff and research infrastructure of the NHS in England is positioned, maintained and managed as a national research facility. The NIHR provides the NHS with the support and infrastructure it needs to conduct first-class research funded by the Government and its partners alongside high-quality patient care, education and training. Its aim is to support outstanding individuals (both leaders and collaborators), working in world class facilities (both NHS and university), conducting leading edge research focused on the needs of patients. More information about the National Institute for Health Research is available on its website at: www.nihr.ac.uk

Contact details

Jon Cole, Senior Programme Manager (Communications) 
Telephone: 023 8059 5642, jmec@southampton.ac.uk

Naomi Stockley, Programme Manager (Communications)
Telephone: 023 8059 5646, ns5@southampton.ac.uk

Helen Nikandrou, Assistant Programme Manager (Communications)
Telephone: 023 8059 5584, h.nikandrou@southampton.ac.uk