The Public Health Research (PHR) Programme is keen to enable local government to be research active. One way it is doing this is through the Public Health Intervention Responsive Studies Teams (PHIRST) scheme which enables evaluation of schemes that local authorities already have in place, providing research evidence to meet local government needs. Our funded research aims to help find out what impact these schemes have on the health and health inequalities experienced by local populations.
The PHIRST scheme is fully-funded to co-design and co-produce evaluations of local authority initiatives in real-time. Our PHIRST teams are currently supporting evaluation of twenty-four initiatives, examples of which are listed below. We have recently recruited a further two academic teams to the PHIRST Scheme and they will start evaluating initiatives in Spring 2022.
PHIRST projects - a sample of active and complete
- The 'No one left behind' project is the evaluation of the effectiveness of a newly commissioned employability service in Scotland.
- The impact the South Gloucestershire Councils Public Space Management programme is having on the population’s health is being evaluated through the 'COVID-19 Public Spaces Management' project.
- The 'Free universal breakfast club and secondary school meals' project is evaluating a London based intervention. The research will focus on the intervention's impact on attainment, health, financial and social benefits.
- The impact of Mindset Teams on supporting Resilience, Health and Wellbeing in primary-aged school children in Scotland is currently being evaluated.
- 'A realist evaluation of a public health community of practice advocacy project to restrict outdoor advertising (HFSS)' project is evaluating the impact of restricted food and drink advertising on children.
- The 'Essex Coronavirus Action Support (EAS) , Essex Welfare Service (EWS)' project is evaluating the impact of a digital community approach and non-traditional service delivery.
- The evaluation of the development of a specialist behaviour change unit in Hertfordshire and its contribution to local government, is now underway.
- The impact of delivering the National Exercise Referral Scheme (NERS) on a virtual platform for over-16s in Wales.
The two new academic teams joining the PHIRST Scheme will be led by Prof Ben Barr (University of Liverpool), and Dr Elizabeth Orton (University of Nottingham).