Title: NIHR Health Protection Research Unit in Emergency Preparedness and Response at King's College London
Funder: Department of Health and Social Care

Abstract: King s College London, the University of East Anglia (UEA) and Public Health England (PHE) currently lead the Health Protection Research Unit in Emergency Preparedness and Response (EPR). Our aims for a renewed Unit are to: work with PHE, other government bodies and the wider community to identify and address knowledge gaps in the field of EPR; work with PHE to develop better procedures to protect the health of the public; develop EPR research capacity within our team and across PHE; become an international centre of excellence for EPR research. Our team includes experts in public health, infectious diseases, behavioural science, psychiatry, computer science and modelling. PHE and King s have worked together since 2005, with over &pound;18 million in EPR research funding. UEA has worked closely with both PHE and King's for many years, leading two highly productive research themes in our original Unit. Work from that original Unit helped shape: how the Government will respond to future flu pandemics; how PHE use training exercises to prepare healthcare workers for crises; and how the mental health of people and populations is protected following terrorism, disease outbreak or disaster. Our proposed Unit will include four new research themes, tackling research questions identified by PHE as being particularly important. 'Novel Technologies' will explore how artificial intelligence and big data can support PHE s ability to identify sudden health changes in the community that suggest an underlying issue. It will also map how complex emergencies involving multiple, interacting problems can affect health in unexpected ways, helping PHE plug gaps in their planning. 'Preparedness' will develop our research on improving PHE s programme of emergency exercises, for example by testing whether additional follow-up with healthcare workers improves how much they learn. We will also test ways to help PHE educate the public (including children and minority groups) about risks that would have a severe impact if they occurred, such as chemical terrorism. 'Resilience' will identify ways for PHE to protect public mental health after a crisis, by developing and testing short training packages to help teachers and line managers support children and employees. 'Response' will improve PHE s efficiency in responding to emergencies by pre-preparing evidence-based answers to the urgent behavioural science questions that are asked in a crisis by policymakers, developing techniques to measure how the public react to an emergency, and testing interventions to help reduce the risk of people developing side-effects from important, protective medicines.

Lay abstract: King s College London, the University of East Anglia (UEA) and Public Health England (PHE) currently lead the Health Protection Research Unit in Emergency Preparedness and Response (EPR). Our aims for a renewed Unit are to: work with PHE, other government bodies and the wider community to identify and address knowledge gaps in the field of EPR; work with PHE to develop better procedures to protect the health of the public; develop EPR research capacity within our team and across PHE; become an international centre of excellence for EPR research. Our team includes experts in public health, infectious diseases, behavioural science, psychiatry, computer science and modelling. PHE and King s have worked together since 2005, with over &pound;18 million in EPR research funding. UEA has worked closely with both PHE and King's for many years, leading two highly productive research themes in our original Unit. Work from that original Unit helped shape: how the Government will respond to future flu pandemics; how PHE use training exercises to prepare healthcare workers for crises; and how the mental health of people and populations is protected following terrorism, disease outbreak or disaster. Our proposed Unit will include four new research themes, tackling research questions identified by PHE as being particularly important. 'Novel Technologies' will explore how artificial intelligence and big data can support PHE s ability to identify sudden health changes in the community that suggest an underlying issue. It will also map how complex emergencies involving multiple, interacting problems can affect health in unexpected ways, helping PHE plug gaps in their planning. 'Preparedness' will develop our research on improving PHE s programme of emergency exercises, for example by testing whether additional follow-up with healthcare workers improves how much they learn. We will also test ways to help PHE educate the public (including children and minority groups) about risks that would have a severe impact if they occurred, such as chemical terrorism. 'Resilience' will identify ways for PHE to protect public mental health after a crisis, by developing and testing short training packages to help teachers and line managers support children and employees. 'Response' will improve PHE s efficiency in responding to emergencies by pre-preparing evidence-based answers to the urgent behavioural science questions that are asked in a crisis by policymakers, developing techniques to measure how the public react to an emergency, and testing interventions to help reduce the risk of people developing side-effects from important, protective medicines.

Research activity codes: 3.5 RESOURCES AND INFRASTRUCTURE (PREVENTION)
Health categories: GENERIC HEALTH RELEVANCE