Our research
The National Institute for Health Research commissioned our researchers to become a Public Health Review Team in 2018.
Overview
The job of the team is to carry out evidence reviews which will look for, bring together and evaluate research that has already been carried out. Public health evidence reviews can examine research on a wide range of topics which have an impact on the health and well-being of the population, either as a whole or for specific communities or groups.
Researchers at the University of Sheffield are very experienced in carrying out this sort of research and provide expertise across a wide range of topics.
Our purpose
The aim is that findings from reviews carried out by the team will help in the planning of future public health programmes and research. We hope that our work will be useful for everybody who is involved in the field of public health.
Our methods
We are asked to look at particular topics and particular research questions. For each topic, we look at a wide selection of research on public health that is already available.
It is important that the way we carry out the work is good value for money, and that we complete each project quickly and efficiently. To achieve this, we usually carry out an initial brief overview to find out what research is available and then ask relevant people what might be of most interest and use to them. This guides what we then look at in more depth.
In order to ensure that reviews are carried out efficiently we use computer software to manage all the stages of the review. We have several different members of the team available to work on the projects as and when needed.
We will involve other people during all stages of each research project in order to ensure that we are asking the right questions, looking at a wide selection of research that is available, putting the results together in a meaningful way, and drawing conclusions that are helpful.
Sharing our research
We put a plan in place for each project, which details who the key people are that need to know about the findings of our research, and what ways we will use to inform them. It is important to use lots of different ways of sharing the findings of our work so that the information is in a form which is clearly understood and usable.
We use methods including producing written summaries of what we have found, as well as short videos, presentations and toolkits. We use social media to publicise findings and have a wealth of experience in translating wide-ranging reviews into useful products.