Dr Katherine Smith joined the Global Public Health Unit in January 2011. She holds a prestigious ESRC and Medical Research Council fellowship in order to investigate how public health research translates into policy and practice…
Despite official commitments to ‘knowledge-transfer’ and ‘evidence-based policy’, a substantial literature indicates that practical decisions are rarely based directly on research evidence. Kat Smith’s PhD research considered this disjuncture in the field of health inequalities in Scotland and England between 1997 and 2007. Her post-doctoral project will further examine the connections between research, policy and practice within public health, extending and updating her previous analysis by addressing developments in policy, research and links between the two.