Funding - PHSRN
The Diet and Physical Activity Measurement Toolkit has been funded by the MRC’s Population Health Sciences Research Network (PHSRN).
The Population Health Sciences Research Network (PHSRN) is a network of Medical Research Council (MRC) research units and centres which aims to bring together and add value to the MRC’s existing investments in public health, health services and epidemiological research by:
- Galvanising MRC’s research effort with a focus on methodological approaches to population health science research;
- Adding value and strengthening research expertise intramurally by pooling and sharing resources to create a more effective critical mass in population health sciences, especially in underrepresented disciplines;
- Providing a coordinating voice on research and policy issues in population health sciences.
The PHSRN currently has 12 members, whose Directors comprise the network’s management board.
Priority research themes
The PHSRN seeks to build upon and improve the rigour, depth and breadth of existing MRC activities, in particular by the use of systematic reviews and primary research in the following areas:
- Translating population health sciences research into policy and practice;
- Changing behaviour at the individual, group or environmental levels;
- Improving measures in the population health sciences;
- Overcoming barriers to population health sciences research;
- Synthesising evidence, capitalising on the methodological strengths in the network and the datasets available in/to the units.
Funding activities
To date, the PHSRN has supported nine cross-unit appointments fourteen workshops and provided one pump-priming grant.
Cross-unit appointments
This toolkit for exposure measurement was undertaken by a cross unit appointment with Human Nutrition Research and MRC Epidemiology, Cambridge, UK.
In addition, the following PHSRN cross-unit appointments have been made:
- Changing behaviour: towards best practice in the development of complex interventions;
- How to make the best use of randomised trial evidence;
- Knowledge translation: supporting dissemination and implementation of MRC research on public health;
- Maximising the return from cohort studies;
- Help-seeking behaviour
- Communicating certainty and uncertainty in public health messages: a case study of MMR help-seeking behaviour;
- Development of a method of bias assessment and meta-analysis for general application to nutrition, physical activity and other forms of behavioural research;
- Measurement and modelling of functional trajectories over the lifecourse.