Research Areas and Featured Projects

The research activities of the Wolfson Research Institute focus on medicine, health, social care and the wellbeing of people and places. There is a particular emphasis on these issues in the north east of England and other parts of the world facing difficult and complex health, social and economic challenges.

A key aim of the Institute is to facilitate cross- and inter-disciplinary research because few problems of health and wellbeing can be adequately tackled through the perspective of a single academic discipline.

Research themes are therefore an important framework for the Institute’s work, both for forward planning and as a focus for specific collaborations in response to calls for major research proposals or approaches from external partners.

The institute operates three themes and within these themes we will be promoting featured research projects over the coming weeks. Please click the titles of the projects below to find out more information.

Optimising Population Health

Local Health Inequalities in an Age of Austerity: The Stockton-on-Tees Study

The current political and economic situation in the UK means that understanding how the local context shapes health inequalities is of increasing importance and there is a clear need to expand our empirical and theoretical knowledge of the complex causal factors involved. This mixed method, intensive interdisciplinary case study will methodologically reshape and localise the study of health inequalities. Drawing on insights from geography, social epidemiology, psychology, sociology, anthropology, history and social policy, it will engage with, advance and influence several key debates around the aetiology, development and localised experience of health inequalities in an age of austerity. This five year, £1 million project was funded by The Leverhulme Trust under their highly prestigious 2012 Research Leadership Awards competition.