We all want public health action that we know will work. But how do we know what will work unless we build an evidence base by researching real-world actions?
To help Public Health researchers find these actions to research, NIHR and FPH are supporting a new system. Phinder is a website that lists interventions from across the UK that are open to being researched.
There has been an increasing recognition of, and frustration about, the separation of frontline public health practice from public health research (and vice versa). Public Health has ample opportunity to influence actions across a wide range of determinants of health. It has the opportunity to get involved in a myriad of actions that have the potential to impact on population health and health inequalities. However, there is often a lack of research evidence to inform these actions.
Meanwhile public health researchers are keen to undertake research that has impact in the real world, but don’t necessarily know what interventions are being developed or delivered that could benefit from research input. There may be many reasons for this. Researchers sometimes struggle to connect with practitioners in local government or the voluntary sector. They often work to very different time frames. And the budgets of practitioners for research are usually very limited.
So, some bright spark suggested “What we need is Tinder for public health!"
After a bit of word play the idea of “phinder" was born. Phinder aims to flag up real-world interventions to interested researchers. The website holds a searchable database of interventions that are accompanied by a small amount of detail and the contact details of someone involved with the intervention who is happy to talk about it further with researchers. Its aim is simply to broker connections between practitioners and researchers with a mutual interest in generating evidence to inform policy and practice.
To work well phinder needs a good stream of novel interventions from public health practice. We think phinder’s database of interventions will stimulate interest among researchers and facilitate new connections, leading to productive relationships.
We are keen to hear from those in practice about their interventions. It is easy to submit an idea – just fill in the simple online form and it will be uploaded to the web site and then tweeted by @researchphinder. Researchers can visit the web site regularly to view new opportunities, follow phinder on twitter or sign up for email alerts.
Phinder does not, unfortunately, offer a guarantee of research funding, nor an evaluation service. Researchers are invited to work with practitioners to develop, and then submit their applications for funding to whichever funder they think is most appropriate. The researcher-led stream of the NIHR Public Health Research programme is always open and proposals are reviewed three times a year. On the NIHR PHR web site you will find plenty of guidance, tools and tips to help develop a winning application.
So, let’s heal the divide between public health research and practice by feeding ideas for research into phinder and build an evidence base to help us take impactful action. All it takes is a little match-making.
For more information visit the phinder website, or follow @researchphinder on Twitter.
