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, healthcare institutions, and broader societal factors shape public health and well-being across the life course. Our research aims to generate evidence that supports well-informed health decisions, contributes to disease prevention, and ultimately improves population health.
Public Health Promotion
We research interventions to promote public health focusing empirically on families, civic and public institutions, and the development of policy interventions to advance health equity and health literacy, and we advance methods for researching complex interventions.
We aim at conducting research that can translate into supporting well-informed health decisions to prevent diseases and overall improve public health.
Health Economics, Policy and Planning
We 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, health insurance reforms, long-term care, and community programmes, including impact on equity in access to care and labour-market outcomes.
Health Organisation
We study how the organisation of health and social care institutions shapes coordination, quality, and safety. This includes a focus on access to services and who benefits most and least from care.
Sustaining and changing care systems
We examine health reform discourses, negotiations of access, healthcare practices, and patient work within integrated care. We do this to understand how health and social care systems are sustained and changed and how this affects public health.
Analyses of organisational processes
Drawing on humanities and social science approaches, we analyse processes of organizational and policy change, focusing on on professions, decision-makers, and AI solutions in health-care. 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.
