Institute of Primary Care and Public Health

The Institute of Primary Care and Public Health, established in 2002, is based within the Faculty of Health and Social Care at London South Bank University. The Institute has grown to be a centre of excellence for research in primary health and social care and in public health. it hosts a programme of research on Health and Wellbeing for All, one of three research programmes in the Faculty.

The Institute aims to:

  • Undertake a broad and intergrated programme of high-quality research focussed on Health and Wellbeing for All.
  • Translate research findings into evidence-based education and training for practice development and effective services.
  • Work in partnership with service providers, voluntary and third sector agencies, communities and policy makers.
  • Develop participatory methods for use in health policy making, priority setting, needs assessment, service development and evaluation.

Research interests

Staff have methodological expertise in quantitative and qualitative methods and a range of interests. Our programme of work has the following key strands:

  • Building the evidence base of what works for whom and how to implement it.
  • Developing capacity and evidence based professional education.
  • Measuring complex issues and measuring progress.

Completed research projects

An Evaluation of Public Health in General Practice Medical Education 2007-2009 Jane Wills.

Wills J, Reynolds J, Swanwick T (2009) 'Just a lovely luxury'? What can public health attachments add to postgraduate general practice training?, Education for Primary Care, 20 (4), 278-285) (Wills J, Reynolds J, Swanwick T (2010) Public Health and General Practice Education, Health Promotion in Medical Education: from rhetoric to action, First, Oxford, UK, Radcliffe Publishing, 139-145, ISBN=84619-292-0)

Developing Research Capacity in Health Promotion at University of Witwatersrand, Johannesburg 2005-2009 Jane Wills.

Wills J, de Kock L (2007) Competing or co-existing? Representations of HIV/AIDS by white women, African Journal of AIDS Research, 6 (3), 229-237)(Wills J, Chinemana F, Rudolph M (2010) Growing or Connecting? An urban food garden in Johannesburg, Health Promotion International, 25 (1), 33-41) (Wills J, Rudolph M (2010) Health Promotion Capacity Building in South Africa, Global Health Promotion, 17 (3), 29-34)

Developing the Evidence Base for Health Literacy 2007-11 Gill Rowlands.

Rowlands G, Kapadia N, Fox D, Chinemana F, Ubhi V, Shaw S: The impact of low literacy on patient health: a qualitative study of United Kingdom Primary Care Practitioners Views. Health Issues 2007; 92: 15-19.(Ibrahim S, Reid F, Shaw A, Rowlands G, Gomez GB, Chesnokov M, Ussher M. Validation of a Health Literacy screening tool in a UK population. Journal of Public Health Medicine Advanced Access published 31 July 2008 doi:10.1093/pubmed/fdn059)(Clement S, Ibrahim S, Wolf M, Crichton N, Rowlands G. Complex interventions to improve the health of people with limited literacy: a systematic review. Patient Education and Counseling 2009 DOI: 10.1016/j.pec.2009.01.008. Available online at: http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.pec.2009.01.008)(Shaw A, Ibrahim S, Reid F, Ussher M, Rowlands G. Patients' perspectives of the doctor-patient relationship and information giving across a range of literacy levels. Patient Education and Counseling; 2009; 75(1): 114-12)(Protheroe J, Wallace L, Rowlands G, DeVoe J. Health Literacy-Setting an International Collaborative Research Agenda. BMC Family Practice 2009, 10:51 doi:10.1186/1471-2296-10-51. Joanne Protheroe. Don Nutbeam, Gill Rowlands. Health Literacy-A Necessity for Increasing Participation in Health Care. Br J Gen Pract 2009 October 1; 59(567): 721-723.)(Wallace LS, DeVoe J, Rogers ES, Protheroe J, Rowlands G, Fryer GE. Digging Deeper: Quality of Patient-Provider Communication across Hispanic Subgroups. BMC Health Services Research 2009,9:240 doi:10.1186/1472-6963-9-240)(Ussher M, Ibrahim S, Reid F, Shaw A, Rowlands G. Psychosocial correlates of health literacy among older patients with coronary heart disease. J Health Commun. 2010 Oct;15(7):788-804.)

Developing Services for Disadvantaged Populations 2007-Gill Rowlands.

Kapadia N, Fox D, Rowlands G, Ashworth M. Developing primary care services for benzodiazepine-using drug dependent patients: a consultation survey. Drugs: Education, Prevention & Policy, October 2007; 14(5): 429-442.(Jessa Z, Evans B J W, Thomson DW, Rowlands G.. Provision of NHS-funded spectacles in South London. Ophthalmic Physiol Opt. Volume 29, Issue 6, pages 641-647, November 200Epub date 2009/08/28 URL: http://www3.interscience.wiley.com/journal/122577648/abstract)(Turk V, Leer G, Burchell S, Khattram S, Corney R, Rowlands G. Adults with intellectual disabilities and their carers as researchers and participants in an RCT. Journal of Applied Research in Intellectual Disability. Accepted August 2011.)(Pinto R, Ashworth M, Seed P, Rowlands G, Schofield P, Jones R. Differences in the primary care management of patients with psychosis from two ethnic groups: a population-based cross sectional study. Family Practice (2010) 27(4): 439-446.)(Turk V, Kerry S, Corney R, Rowlands G, Khattran S. Factors affecting general practice consultation rates of adults with intellectual disability. Journal of Intellectual Disability Research. 2010 Sep;54(9):833-42.)

Developing Services for People with Mental Illness 2007-11 Gill Rowlands.

Andre Tylee, Mark Ashworth, Elizabeth Barley, June Brown, John Chambers, Anne Farmer, Zoe Fortune, Mark Haddad, Rebecca Lawton, Morven Leese, Anthony Mann, Anita Mehay, Paul McCrone, Joanna Murray, Carmine Pariante, Diana Rose, Gill Rowlands, Alison Smith and Paul Walters. Up-Beat UK: A programme of research in to the relationship between coronary heart disease and depression in primary care patients. BMC Family Practice 2011, 12:38doi:10.1186/1471-2296-12-38.(Ashworth M, Robinson S, Evans C, Shepherd M, Conolly A, Rowlands G. What does an idiographic measure (PSYCHLOPS) tell us about the spectrum of psychological issues and scores on a nomothetic measure (CORE-OM)? Primary Care and Community Psychiatry, Volume 12, Number 1, January 2007 , pp. 7-16(10).

Current projects

Building The Evidence Base- Health Literacy Group

Funders: Department of Health (England), MSD, Food and Drink Federation, LUTO. Project contact: L McDonald.

Evaluating the Social Return on Investment- An Intervention Aimed at Returning Long Term Unemployed Back to Work

Funder: NHS Tower Hamlets. Project contact: G Rowlands.

A Behaviour Insight Study of the Health Attitudes and Behaviours of Subpopulations of Barking & Dagenham Who are Obese.

Funder: NHS Barking and Dagenham. Project contact: J Wills.

Developing Capacity- Evaluation of a Primary Care Youth Service: The Well Centre, Streatham, South London (joint with Achieving Service and Clinical Excellence).

Funder: NHS Lambeth. Project contact: S Corlett.

Measuring Complex Issues and Measuring Progress - Validating a Measure of Function Health Literacy and Numeracy: the Newest Vital Sign UK

Funder: Guy's and St Thomas' Charity. Project contact: G Rowlands.

Primary Care Mental Health (Exploration of Health Literacy, Depression and Symptomatic Cardiovascular Disease).

Funder: South London and Maudsley NHS Foundation Trust.Project contact: G Rowlands.

Staying Heart Healthy: Developing Individual- Level Indicators of socio-economic Deprivation and Exploring their Use in the Prevention of Cardiovascular Disease.

Funder: NHS Lambeth. Project contact: S Jaswal.

Evaluating Health Literacy Skills in England: Deriving Health Literacy Levels in England from the 2010 Skills for Life Survey.

Funder: MSD. Project contact: G Rowlands.

Using Routinely Collected Primary Care Clinical Data to Improve Patient Care: the Lambeth Community Datanet.

Funder: NHS Lambeth. Project contact: D Whitney.

The Cardio-vascular Disease Prevention Project: Comparison of Commonly-used Cardiovascular Risk Scores in a Multi-ethnic Inner-city Population.

Funder: Starnet London. Project contact: P Schofield.

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Staff

Professor Gillian Rowlands
Director of Institute of Primary Care and Public Health
Tel: 020 7815 8097
Email: rowlang2@lsbu.ac.uk

Professor Nicola Crichton
Pro- Dean Research and Professor in Medical Statistics
Tel: 020 7815 6742
Email: crichtnj@lsbu.ac.uk

Jane Wills
Professor of Health Promotion
Tel: 020 7815 7996
Email: willsj@lsbu.ac.uk

Peter Schofield
Senior Research Fellow
Tel: 020 7815 8306
Email: schofiep@lsbu.ac.uk

Amy Scammell
Senior Research Fellow
Tel: 020 7815 8334
Email: scammela@lsbu.ac.uk

Adrienne Shaw
Research Fellow
Tel: 020 7815 8324
Email: shawa3@lsbu.ac.uk

Sabrena Jaswel
Research Assistant
Tel: 020 7815 8314
Email: jaswals2@lsbu.ac.uk

Shalini Ameeta Ajooda
Research Assistant
Tel: 020 7815 6152
Email: ajooda@lsbu.ac.uk

David Whitney
Research Assistant
Tel: 020 7815 8000
Email: whitned2@lsbu.ac.uk

Peter Franks
Visiting Professor- Tissue Viability
Email: franksp@lsbu.ac.uk

Sarah Corlett
Consultant in Public Health
Email: sarah.corlett@lsbu.ac.uk

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Key contact

Professor Gillian Rowlands
Director of Institute of Primary Care and Public Health
Tel: 020 7815 8097
Email: rowlang2@lsbu.ac.uk