Research at the Nuffield Centre for International Health and Development
- Group summary: The Nuffield Centre for International Health and Development is an established specialist centre for Research, Consultancy and Advisory Services and for Under and Postgraduate Teaching in Global Health. Our research addresses priority global health and development challenges to inform and improve health policies, systems and practices. For over 40 years, the Centre maintained its reputation for international leadership in global health, primarily in low- and middle-income countries.
Where we work
Our work is primarily in Sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia. We also work with vulnerable populations in the UK. For details, please the map (created from: https://mapchart.net/).
We work closely with governmental and non-governmental decision-makers, programme managers and service providers, plus our long-standing research partners in these countries. We have been a World Health Organization Collaborating Centre in Research and Capacity Strengthening of Health Policy, Governance and Services with a renewal process in progress.
Our research
We address key health and developmental challenges and focus on improving the health, wellbeing and social inclusion of vulnerable populations who experience poverty or discrimination due to their gender, ethnicity, religion, age or other characteristics. We use an embedded approach to research to maximise research uptake and its impact on policy and practice. To do this we collaborate with our local research partners who maintain strong relationships with decision-makers and local communities throughout the research process. This also ensures that our collaborative research addresses the local priority problems. Our research aims to:
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Enhance understanding of how health policies and systems can be better configured to improve healthcare and achieve systems goals of responsiveness, sustainability, equity, and universal health coverage (UHC).
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Develop, implement and evaluate complex health interventions at community and facility levels to improve service delivery on priority communicable and non-communicable diseases, multi-morbidities and maternal and child health.
Our research portfolio covers six inter-related themes (Note: theme leads are the main contacts and multiple staff are involved in each theme; studies cut across themes):
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Health policy and systems research Policy analysis | Accountability, Responsiveness | Equity, Social inclusion | Governance, health planning | Financing | Health workforce Theme lead: |
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Antimicrobial resistance Community engagement | Facility and health systems interventions Theme lead: |
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Urban Health Multi-sectoral solutions | Urban poor | Methodological innovations to urbanisation challenges Theme lead: |
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Planetary health Climate change and health | Resilience | Sustainability Theme lead: |
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Improving healthcare Packages of primary care | non-communicable diseases (cardio-vascular, cancer, diabetes, mental health) | communicable diseases (hepatitis, tuberculosis and COVID-19) Theme lead: |
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Capacity building Assessments of capacity needs and assets | Sustainable capacity building | Research uptake | Community engagement | Social inclusion Theme lead: |
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Further details of these and other projects are in the School of Medicine’s projects directory.
The wider context
Our research anticipates and responds to global developmental issues and strategic directions, specifically:
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The Sustainable Development Goals, particularly SDG 1 (poverty), 3 (health), 5, 10 (gender, equity), 13-15 (sustainability and climate change) and 16 (justice, institutions).
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Priority Areas for the UK’s Global Challenges Research Fund, particularly sustainable health and wellbeing; clean air, water and sanitation; resilience and action on environmental change, sustainable cities and communities and social justice.
Our work spearheads collaborative and multi-disciplinary Global Health Research at the University of Leeds, in pursuit of:
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The University Strategy for 2020-2030 ‘Making Global Impact’ and the University’s Global Health Theme, particularly access and equity, anti-microbial resistance, climate change and planetary health, health systems governance and financing, and mental health.
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The Faculty of Medicine and Health’s Internationalisation Strategy and the School of Medicine’s Medicine Redefined Strategy, particularly applied health research, cancer and cardio-vascular diseases.
Who we are
Our team comprises people with diverse methodological expertise in the areas of: health policy analysis, health systems strengthening, anthropology and social sciences, epidemiology, health economics, health service delivery, capacity building, urban health and climate change.
We work closely with our long-standing partners in different Asian and African countries and have strong cross-faculty links with Sociology and Social Policy, Arts, Earth and Environment, and Psychology. We also welcome enquiries about future collaborations.
Head of Division
Dr Tolib Mirzoev