A World-Leading Programme

Health at Durham is a university-wide strategic programme of world-leading research, education, engagement, and impact.

Our vision is for people to thrive in the places they live. We embrace physical, mental, social and environmental health, envisioned as a synergy of self, beliefs, culture, family, community and planet.

We advance a unique and expansive perspective on health, which spans across 27 academic departments, 17 Colleges and Wider Student Experience, 40 health-related undergraduate courses and post-graduate programmes, and over 40 research institutes, centres and groups, from the Wolfson Research Institute for Health and Wellbeing to the Institute for Medical Humanities to the Biophysical Sciences Institute.

Our vision transforms into action by drawing on the incredibly rich and diverse expertise of Durham University and of our partners across three deeply interconnected ways of framing health.

Individuals and health

For this framing, health is about the physicality, behaviour, and wellness of the embodied self.  

Communities, places and health

For this framing, health is about the communities and places in which people live, including the complex systems of which they are a part.  

Environments, ecology and health

For this framing, health ranges from microbiological to ecological to include the multiple environments in which humans live. Sustainability and planetary health are key to this research frame.