Professor Susie Sykes

I joined LSBU in 2006 and am Professor of Public Health and Health Promotion. I worked previously at the University of East London, de Montfort University and in a number of public and voluntary sector public health organisations. I have a BA(hons) from the University of Sheffield, an MA in Health and Community Development from de Montfort University and acquired my PhD in Public Health from LSBU. I teach public health and research methods and lead PHET@LSBU delivering training and CPD to the public health workforce. I am the Chief Investigator of PHIRST South Bank.

My research interests focus on; health literacy, community focused public health, intervention evaluation and workforce development. I believe that understanding the impact of low levels of health literacy and the opportunities for building critical health literacy at a community level as a mechanism for addressing the determinants of health is important as a strategy for reducing health inequalities. Recent projects examined eHealth literacy for people experiencing infertility and eHealth literacy in a pandemic context. In collaboration with international partners I am Vice Chair of the Global Working Group for Health Literacy and part of the Global Health literacy and Covid-19 consortium.
Key to my work is a commitment to research that supports the public health workforce and the evaluation of population public health and health promotion interventions has always formed an important part of my research.
I am the Director of PHIRST South Bank, one of 8 UK wide centres funded by NIHR to evaluate locally led traditional and non-traditional public health interventions. This Centre provides an important opportunity to co-produce evaluations with local areas and ensure findings drive change at both a local and national level. Examples of our research include an evaluation of advocacy work across an English region to reduce advertising of products high in fat, salt and sugar and an evaluation of strategic work to reduce violence against young people in Lambeth.

Director of PHIRST London
Chair HSC Systematic Review Board

Public Health and Health Promotion Research methods