The aim of this programme is to support and advance the study of biological, social and environmental influences on the physical and mental health and wellbeing of populations, and the development of interventions designed to improve population health or prevent diseases.
The Medical Research Council’s (MRC) population health sciences programme embraces the study of biological, social and environmental influences on the physical and mental health and wellbeing of populations.
A key aim of population health research is to understand how and why health and wellbeing varies within and between populations and across the life course.
The science we support
Longitudinal Population Studies (LPS)
For more than 50 years, MRC has funded a diverse range of population cohorts for LPS that have provided important insights into the determinants of health, wellbeing and disease. They have also contributed to public health policy and changes in clinical practice. To maximise the value of these studies, it is important to gain a comprehensive understanding of how they fit into the context of the wider UK population cohort landscape.
UK Biobank
UK Biobank is a major national resource for health research with the aim of improving the prevention, diagnosis and treatment of a wide range of serious and life-threatening illnesses.
Funded primarily by MRC and the Wellcome Trust, UK Biobank recruited 500,000 people aged between 40 and 69 years between 2006 and 2010 from across the country to take part in this project. They have undergone DNA sequencing, medical imaging, provided blood, urine and saliva samples for future analysis, supplied detailed information about themselves and agreed to have their health followed.
Adolescent Health Study
MRC’s Adolescent Health Study (AHS) is a new longitudinal population study and data platform. It will focus on the critical biological and social developments that occur during adolescence.
AHS aims to recruit and retain around 100,000 young people, aged eight to 18 at enrolment, and will follow their health and wellbeing for a period of 10 years. Recruitment will take place predominantly through schools.
The vision is to stimulate an exponential increase in research to understand health trajectories and outcomes for young people, with a key focus on health equity.
Our Future Health
Our Future Health is an ambitious collaboration between the public, charity and private sectors to build the UK’s largest health research programme, bringing people together to develop new ways to prevent, detect and treat disease.
It aims to be the UK’s largest ever health research programme, recruiting up to five million adult volunteers from across the UK, to help researchers discover new ways to prevent, detect and treat diseases.
Strategic initiatives and partnerships
UK Prevention Research Partnership
The UK Prevention Research Partnership (UKPRP) is a multi-funder initiative that supports research into the primary prevention of non-communicable diseases to improve population health and reduce health inequalities in the UK.
The research addresses the upstream determinants of non-communicable diseases and is produced together with users such as policymakers, practitioners, health providers, the third sector and the public. The upstream determinants include, but are not limited to:
- The built and natural environment
- Employment, education, welfare, transport, health and social care, and communication systems
- The policies of local and central government and of commercial enterprises
UKPRP seeks to:
- build and support interdisciplinary research teams to develop, implement and evaluate preventive policies, practices, designs and interventions which will enable change within complex adaptive systems to prevent non-communicable disease
- deliver solutions for large-scale and cost-effective improvements in health and the prevention of non-communicable diseases that meet the needs of providers and policymakers and are responsive to the challenging timescales of policymaking
UKPRP has funded seven research consortia and five networks, consisting of academics from a range of disciplines and partners from local authorities, charities, and industry.
Population health improvement
Through UKRI’s health, ageing and wellbeing strategic theme we have funded a new interdisciplinary network comprising a director led Hub and four research themes, each addressing a separate yet complementary challenge. The themes are:
- Healthy urban places
- Local health and global profits
- Policy modelling for health
- Population mental health
The Population Health Improvement network will underpin research to improve the health of communities across the UK, reduce health inequalities, and develop and evaluate effective, long-lasting and environmentally sustainable interventions.
Population Research UK
Population Research UK (PRUK) is an initiative dedicated to maximising the potential of longitudinal population studies in the UK across social, economic and biomedical research, funded by the UKRI Infrastructure Fund.
PRUK will drive change by delivering five key objectives:
- Coordinate and advocate for the LPS community
- Enhance discovery capabilities for LP
- Streamline data access processes and mechanisms
- Facilitate LPS linked data use
- Build capacity and skills for LPS
UK Longitudinal Linkage Collaboration
UK Longitudinal Linkage Collaboration (UK LLC) is the national Trusted Research Environment (TRE) for data linkage in longitudinal research. It simplifies access to linked data for research, enabling discoveries through linked associations between health, social, behavioural, and economic research.
UK LLC originated in 2020 as part of the COVID-19 Longitudinal Health and Wellbeing National Core Study, set up by Sir Patrick Vallance and led by Professor Nish Chaturvedi. Further funding from MRC and Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC) has enabled UK LLC to expand from a purely COVID-19 research resource to a general-purpose research resource, meaning linked longitudinal data held in the UK LLC TRE can now be used for a wide range of research in the public good.
UK LLC provides secure access to the TRE containing more than 400,000 participant records from over 20 Longitudinal Population Studies across the four UK nations. This includes some of the earliest studies established, with decades of self-reported and clinical data. UK LLC enhances the study-collected data by linking participants’ health and socio-economic data and data about the environments, neighbourhoods and dwellings in which participants live.
Units and centres
MRC supports the following units and centres, which study the various determinants of population health:
- MRC/CSO Social and Public Health Sciences Unit, University of Glasgow
- MRC Lifecourse Epidemiology Centre, University of Southampton
- MRC Epidemiology Unit, University of Cambridge
- MRC Integrative Epidemiology Unit, University of Bristol
- MRC Biostatistics Unit, University of Cambridge
- MRC Centre for Global Infectious Disease Analysis, Imperial College London
- MRC Centre for Environment and Health, Imperial College London
How we fund population health sciences
We fund population health sciences through boards and panels, various fellowships and multi-funder partnerships such as the UKPRP and UK Biobank.
Boards and panels
Our boards and panels include:
- Infections and Immunity Board
- Molecular and Cellular Medicine Board
- Neurosciences and Mental Health Board
- Population and Systems Medicine Board
- Longitudinal Population Studies Strategic Advisory Panel
Fellowships
MRC fellowships provide outstanding scientists with exceptional opportunities to develop their careers, by concentrating on challenging research and gaining the broader experience that is essential to a future leadership role.
They can support the development of talented individuals to strengthen the UK population health research base.