Our aim is to better understand and improve human health and wellbeing via the study of social, behavioural, economic, cultural and environmental influences on health and the application of social science theories and methodologies.MRC/CSO Social and Public Health Sciences UnitThe overarching aim of this Unit is to improve human health and wellbeing via the study of social, behavioural, economic, cultural and environmental influences on health. It comprises a large group of social science-led researchers, focusing on social determinants of health, health inequalities and health improvement. More specific objectives include:studying the multiple interacting processes through which biological, social, behavioural, economic, cultural and environmental factors influence physical and mental health and health behaviours over the lifecoursediscovering mechanisms which can modify these processes and have the potential to improve public health in a complex and changing worlddeveloping and evaluating interventions which harness these mechanisms to improve public health and reduce social inequalities in healthinfluencing policy and practice by communicating the results and implications of research to a range of audiencesBroad themes within the social and public health sciences unit’s research programmes include:development and evaluation of complex interventionstransferability of interventionscomplex systems sciencehealth inequalities and linked data analysisnatural experiments from observational dataenhancing cohort, survey and routine data sourcesfamiliespeers and social networksintimate and sexual relationshipscommunitieseducational settingsprofessional sports club settingssecure institutional settingsworkplacesmeasuring and understanding impacts of regeneration/transformation on health and wellbeingcontextual influences on children and young peopleimproving health in neighbourhoods and communitiesunderstanding emerging health debatesunderstanding policy and using evidenceevaluating healthy public policies