PHIRST EMPower
PHIRST stands for Public Health Intervention Responsive Study Teams.
PHIRSTs link up academic teams with local government organisations to evaluate the public health interventions they are currently managing across the UK.
The types of public health initiatives PHIRSTs evaluate are wide ranging. For example: address gambling harms, weight management programmes.
The PHIRST scheme began in 2020 and has grown to ten evaluation delivery teams. PHIRST work is robust and timely, so that the findings and recommendations can inform local government practice in the here and now. Each PHIRST will conduct ten evaluations across five years.
The PHIRST scheme is funded by the National Institute for Health and Care Research (NIHR), Public Health Research (PHR) Programme. McPin has joined with the University of Exeter in a collaborative partnership to form an evaluation delivery team known as PHIRST EMPower.
Project overview
EMPower brings together the University of Exeter, known for its research in public health and community engagement, and McPin – a charity that delivers research informed and directed by expertise generated through lived experience.
This is the first time a third sector organisation has been involved in a PHIRST partnership which highlights PHIRSTs’ genuine commitment to meaningful public involvement in its evaluations.
How PHIRST Empower will work
PHIRST EMPower evaluations will take a ‘bottom-up’ approach by gathering knowledge from local government about their public health initiatives.
We will look at any existing data they hold and aim to build an understanding of what each local government needs from an evaluation. We will draw on similar public health initiatives happening around the UK, as well as relevant existing research to co-create a robust and practical evaluation.
Community involvement is a cornerstone of the EMPower approach to evaluations. Each evaluation will be informed by the local public partners. The level of involvement will be different for each evaluation and can range from advisory work to more embedded community researcher work.
Project details
Public health is something that affects everyone. Good public health leads to happier, healthier and socially cohesive local communities. As the evaluations are timely, they can effect positive change in the here and now.
In addition, the PHIRST scheme is UK-wide and has an emphasisis on knowledge mobilisation.
This scope and focus means that the evaluations can have wider public health benefits beyond the local context – for example, learning around good practice of local public health initiatives and innovative evaluation approaches and methodologies can be shared amongst local government at a national level.
McPin will be working with the University of Exeter to ensure that local communities are at the heart of evaluation plans, processes and knowledge mobilisation. What shape involvement will take will depend on the local work and context but will range from advisory work to more embedded community research.
If you want to find out more information about EMPower and PHIRST in general, please visit www.phirst.nihr.ac.uk.
If you are interested in finding out about the evaluation’s public involvement approaches and methods, please get in touch with [email protected] for more information on this project.
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