News & Media

Researchers from SARG are set to showcase their work at the University of Sheffield's School of Medicine and Population Health Research and Innovation Meeting 2025.

The second annual School of Medicine and Population Health Research and Innovation Meeting, taking place on Wednesday 18 and Thursday 19 June 2025 at The Wave, aims to bring together all members of the School to raise awareness of ongoing research and foster new collaborations.

The meeting will culminate on the afternoon of Thursday 19 June with the Faculty of Health Showcase, bringing together research from all schools across the Faculty. This provides an excellent opportunity for SARG to share its public health research with a wider academic audience and explore new avenues for impactful partnerships.

SARG's contributions at the event include:

Oral presentations and workshops

• Laura Fenton will deliver a talk entitled 'A family affair? Exploring the place of alcohol-free and low-alcohol drinks in young people's day-to-day practices'. Her presentation, based on a paper co-authored with Inge Kersbergen, Zoe Clarke, Parvati Perman-Howe and John Holmes, explores how young people incorporate no/lo drinks into their daily lives, and the public health implications of this behaviour.
• Duncan Gillespie will speak in two workshops. One, targeted at PIs and aspiring PIs, will explore navigating the impact pathway and demonstrating real-world research benefits. The other will focus on translating research discoveries into broader societal impact, showcasing how medical and population health research can drive economic growth, improve patient outcomes, and address pressing societal challenges.
• Charlotte Head will lead a workshop aiming to help researchers enhance their online profiles and effectively use social media for science communication. Colin Angus will join the Q&A panel during this workshop, offering his expertise on public engagement and research dissemination.
• Colin Angus will give an overview of the breadth of alcohol research being undertaken within SARG, including our highly influential work on minimum unit pricing (MUP), the No/Lo Project investigating non-alcoholic and low-alcohol drinks, and our evaluations of alcohol tax reforms and the impact of the cost-of-living crisis on consumption and harms.
• Lucy Burke is a finalist in the University of Sheffield round of the 3 Minute Thesis (3MT) competition, an international contest where PhD students present their research in just three minutes to a non-specialist audience.

Poster presentations

• Duncan Gillespie will present a poster on 'Informing Smoke-Free University Policy: An Observational Study of Tobacco Smoking and Vaping on University of Sheffield Sites'. This study was conducted by medical students as part of the Smoke-Free University Initiative, and provides evidence to inform the University of Sheffield's smoke-free policy consultation by assessing real-world smoking and vaping rates on campus.
• Charlotte Head will present a poster entitled 'Generating Local Health Risk Behaviour Estimates using Simulated Annealing'. Co-authored with Esther Chanakira, Duncan Gillespie, Penny Breeze, Colin Angus, Chloe Thomas and Alan Brennan, this research develops a method for producing detailed, small-area estimates of health risk behaviours (smoking, obesity, alcohol consumption) to support targeted public health interventions at the local authority level.

The meeting provides a valuable platform for the SARG team to share their latest research and expertise with colleagues across the Faculty of Health. To explore the breadth of our research, visit our Research page. You can also learn more about the people behind this work on our Team page.