Population Health

We face a paradox with respect to population health – while overall life expectancy is improving, health inequalities remain. So the challenge is to improve health and health care across all social groups.  London faces particular challenges. One is a socially and ethnically diverse: population even in  areas such as Barnet where average life expectancy is higher than both the London and national average, people in deprived wards have a life expectancy of up to six years less than those in affluent wards.  London also faces a historical legacy of poor planning, leaving Londoners with services which in many cases are world class but which vary widely in quality and are fragmented.  It is not surprising, therefore, that Londoners have historically reported a poorer experience of care compared with other English regions, and that institutions in London have repeatedly failed to achieve health improvement targets.

UCLPartners exists to respond to these challenges and effect change by taking an evidence-based approach to identifying key wins for our population – and by  supporting fundamental  restructuring of the system where this will improve patient outcomes.

The priority of the UCLPartners Population Health Programme is to develop and evaluate  the quality and delivery of interventions and pathways which are most likely to have substantial public health impact in terms of health improvement and reductions in inequalities, and that can be implemented at scale. We are working with UCLPartners clinical Programmes to design and undertake pragmatic, robust evaluations of innovative primary, secondary and community care pathways for chronic conditions.  These include the integrated cancer provider network; improving care in the community for paediatric asthma”; “every child a communicator”; and changing the model of antenatal care.

For more information, please contact Professor Rosalind Raine, Director of Population Health at UCLPartners.