Applied Public Health
“We deliver high-quality applied public health research with impact on practice and policy strengthening societal understanding of population health, health organisation, and health systems. We aim at being recognized nationally and internationally for excellence in research and teaching, and for generating sustained impact on global health.”
- Helle Terkildsen Maindal
Head of section
What we do
We investigate how individual, social and structural factors shape public health. We evaluate initiatives that promote equitable health promotion, prevention, and primary care across policy domains, health institutions and communities with a focus on life-course health and sustainable population health.
Our approach
We employ a wide range of theoretical, empirical, and applied methods to produce rigorous, high-impact analyses of health promotion, interventions, health organisations, and population health.
Our research units:
Health Promotion and Interventions
This unit examines how social characteristics, health institutions and systems, and broader societal factors shape public health and well-being across the life course.
Our research aims to generate evidence that supports health promotion, well-informed health decisions, contributes to disease prevention, and ultimately improves population health and equity.
Health Promotion
We research interventions to promote public health, focusing empirically on youth, families, civic and public institutions to advance health equity and health literacy, and we advance methods for researching complex interventions.
We aim to conduct research that can translate into well-informed health decisions to prevent disease and improve public health overall.
Health Economics, Policy and Planning
Prioritization of limited resources and design of policies and systems is key to maximize achievement of health policy objectives such as equitable access to care, improved population health, and sustainability of healthcare systems in the face of rising costs, ageing populations, and increasing demand. We mainly employ quantitative methods integrating demography, epidemiology and health economics to contribute evidence for prioritization and policy, health system planning and financing at national and global levels.
Demography and population health
We develop and apply models that translate health risks into population health metrics. Our research examines how demographic change and transitions affect survival, health, and economic outcomes.
Health economics, policy, and equity
We study the cost-effectiveness and impacts of interventions and policies - such as antimicrobial resistance solutions, child disability support, health insurance reforms, long-term care, and community programmes, including impact on equity in access to care and labour-market outcomes.
Health Organisation
The organisation of health and social care systems is crucial for how coordinated, meaningful, effective, and safe these systems are. This organisation significantly influences who has the easiest access to services and who benefits the most from them. Complex challenges, such as rising health inequities and increasing digitalisation, speak to the strengths of our research.
We study topics such as health reform discourses, the negotiation of health access, healthcare practices, and patient work within integrated care to explore the making of health and social care systems, and their consequences for public health.
Interdisciplinary, theory-informed and qualitative research
We use interdisciplinary approaches drawing on humanities and social sciences theories, and we work mainly qualitatively, acknowledging the complexity of research practice.
We analyse the organisation of health and social care systems as an interplay between people, health professions, decision makers, non-human actors, and new health policies and initiatives. We study these processes across system, organisational and practice levels.
We engage in strategic collaborations with leading national and international partners across academia, public institutions and the health sector, playing a central role in driving interdisciplinary initiatives.
The Applied Public Health section is responsible for teaching in Public Health Sciences and delivers courses across the Department’s educational programmes. We also contribute extensively to teaching and supervision at the PhD and postgraduate levels.
