The Discipline of Health Promotion is the national centre for professional training and education in health promotion. Attached to the Discipline is the Health Promotion Research Centre, which has an active multidisciplinary research programme in place. The Discipline offers supervision of postgraduate research in a wide range of areas, including Health Promotion, Population Health, Health Services Research, Social Care and Occupational Health. Admission to a research degree is at the discretion of the potential Supervisor and the Head of Discipline, and is based on a proposal from the applicant following discussion with the member of staff whose academic area of interest is most appropriate. Application is competitive and the number of places offered will be based on staff resources. Candidates should have obtained an honours primary degree (Second Class Honours, Grade 1 minimum), and for the PhD, would usually already hold a Master's degree in Health Promotion or a related area.

PhDs in Health Promotion are offered on a full time and part time basis and either through the College of Medicine, Nursing and Health Sciences or the College of Arts, Social Science and Celtic Studies. Both Colleges encourage full-time students to participate in a structured PhD programme, where students avail of a range of interdisciplinary taught modules. The wide menu of available options include modules that:

• are discipline-specific in that they augment the student’s existing knowledge in their specialist area,
• are dissertation-specific in that they supply core skills which are essential to completion of the research project,
• contribute to a student’s professional development, and
• enhance a student’s employability through generic training.

Each student will be assigned a primary Supervisor(s) and a Graduate Research Committee made up of experienced researchers to plan their programme of study and to provide on-going support to their research.

Research Areas

• Breastfeeding
• Child and adolescent health
• Communicable disease control and environmental health
• Community health
• Evaluation research
• Evidence-based practice
• Food poverty
• Global and international health and development
• Health and human rights
• Health and the media
• Health impact assessment
• Health inequalities and inequities
• Health policy
• Health promotion competencies
• Health services research
• Healthy ageing
• Migrant health
• Violence and injury prevention
• Mental health promotion
• Participative research processes
• Research dissemination, translating research into practice
• Settings for health promotion: workplace and schools
• Sexual and reproductive health
• Social capital and social connectedness