Research areas & capability
We conduct research and employ evidence-based practice throughout all parts of the organisation, particularly within the Science and Public Health and Clinical Groups.
Infectious Diseases
We are responsible for protecting the population's health from infection and aim to reduce the burden from infectious diseases on the NHS and social care, and tackle inequalities through:
- Robust surveillance and intelligence systems
- Timely detection, investigation and control of outbreaks of disease
- Developing, implementing and evaluating interventions to prevent and control infectious diseases
- Advising the central government, local government and other partners to inform public health policy and action
- Providing advice to the public to prevent and manage communicable diseases
- Focusing on how we can use sequencing to diagnose and manage infectious diseases
Specialist areas
- Blood-borne and Sexually Transmitted Infections
- Countermeasures
- Emerging and Zoonotic Diseases
- Epidemology
- Gastrointestinal Infections
- Genomics
- Healthcare Acquired Infections and Antimicrobial Resistance
- Respiratory Infections
- Vaccines and Immunisation
Environment and Health
UKHSA is the UK's primary authority on chemical, radiation and environmental hazards. UKHSA’s Radiation, Chemical and Environmental Hazards Directorate (RCE) and the new Centre for Climate and Health Security carry out research to advance our protection and prevention capabilities from a range of threats:
- Radiation
- Chemicals
- Environmental change
- Extreme weather events such as flooding
Specialist areas
- Toxicology of chemicals
- Climate change and extreme events
- Radiation
Emergency Response
Our Emergency Response Department works at home and abroad to improve public health resilience by providing world-class, trusted EPRR services backed by evidence based scientific and medical research. ERD’s role in EPRR is to ensure plans are in place, and are tested, to prepare for health emergencies and compliance with WHO International Health regulations.
Areas of work
- Emergency preparedness
- Emergency Operation Centre guidance, plans and exercises
- Horizon scanning and risk assessment
- Training and exercises with Skills for Health quality assurance
- Process for lessons identified and review of actions
- Evidence based scientific and medical research informing all EPRR services
Behavioural Sciences
The Behavioural Science and Insights Unit (BSIU) provides leadership in the application of behavioural and social science to health security, and in support of initiatives to help build system-wide capacity and capability. We have expertise in behavioural and social science, behavioural insights, evidence-based risk and crisis communication, and the psychological and behavioural aspects of health protection incidents and health security. We work nationally, regionally and locally to support teams responding to outbreaks and incidents, including Chemical, Biological, Radiological and Nuclear incidents.
Working with public and private sector partners, we conduct and coordinate behavioural science and insights advice, guidance, evaluation and research. Our research has a track record of peer-reviewed publications, dissemination and translation. We contribute to the Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies (SAGE) and its behavioural science sub-group SPI-B, and work with a range of cross-Government partners and networks and international working groups and bodies.
Other Research and Evaluation methods
- Literature reviews and evidence syntheses
- Behavioural analysis
- Primary qualitative and quantitive data collection
- Inform intervention design (online and field-based pragmatic RCTs)
- Intervention implementation
- Evaluation and research
Statistics and Modelling
Our Statistics and Modelling teams develop and implement a variety of models focussed on a range of strategic objectives, for example, assessment and prediction of the public health impacts of newly emerging or re-emerging infectious disease threats, informing on the cost-effectiveness of national vaccination programmes, assessing the impact of interventions, estimating disease burden, determination of increased disease reporting to detect outbreaks.
We give evidence-based analysis and advice to UKHSA, the Department of Health and Social Care (DHSC), Government advisory committees such as JCVI, APRHAI, and SPI-M, and other bodies.
To address these challenges we develop data driven models that combine
- An understanding of how populations mix,
- Our current understanding around parameters that describe the natural history of an infectious pathogen,
- Our understanding of the data generation processes underlying our surveillance data,
- An understanding of the zoonotic infections and their potential eco-epidemiology (MEZE),
- Spatial and behavioural processes