Optimising Health

In the context of “making knowledge work”, the focus of this theme is on improving health and wellbeing outcomes through continued innovation-driven, value-added research. This is multi-faceted but can be described as: developing inventories of service provision through audit, assessment of access and engagement with stakeholders; interrogation of dedicated databases regarding population health and illness; investigating the psychological, behavioural and social factors that shape health, wellbeing, resilience and quality of life; developing analytical insight in asset utilisation, facility and patient management to deliver evidence-based advances in processes, technologies and devices; interdisciplinary evaluation of public health; and engagement with population health promotion.

In addition, there is a clear emphasis on efficiently and effectively translating scientific discoveries into practical benefit for patients and, more broadly, for society. Designing and evaluating innovative evidence-based psychological, behavioural, health promotion and rehabilitation interventions is central to this theme. Rigorous methodological approaches are applied to programme design, implementation, evaluation and service delivery in order to optimise client outcomes. This theme includes the identification and prevention of risk factors; accurate diagnosis, assessment and treatment; understanding and promoting psychological wellbeing and positive health behaviours; and addressing the scope of client rehabilitation and management.

Researchers working in this area