Phinder – Advertising public health interventions

Phinder is a new website aimed at encouraging the research of real-world public health work. The aim is to “match-make” researchers with real-world work, so that they can use it as the basis for research funding applications. Phinder is supported by the NIHR, the Faculty of Public Health, the Local Government Association and CSO.

The web address is https://phinder.ning.com/ and phinder also tweets as @researchphinder

Phinder already has over 310 people, including many researchers, following it on twitter. To make an impact it needs a steady stream of examples of interventions that will impact on the health of the public. Current examples include a large urban redevelopment in London, psychological services tailored to the homeless and staff training to identify domestic violence. It is easy to tell phinder about public health interventions by completing the simple online form . All that is needed is a sentence or two about the intervention and the name and email of someone who is willing to be contacted by researchers.

Phinder is not a guarantee of research funding or an evaluation service – but it is hoped that by linking public health teams with researchers it will make it easier to build the public health evidence base using the brilliant work that is already going on.