The Centre for Health History deploys historical knowledge and methods to inform contemporary policy discussions within modern health care. Our focus creates opportunities for historians to work with social scientists, health care professionals and medical researchers on pressing national and international medical, social and welfare issues.

Our research explores the historical precedents of current health problems, which allows us to contextualise contemporary media and policy discussions through impact driven research in areas like mental health, infant welfare, medicine and nursing in war, professional regulation, humanitarianism and the plight of refugees.

The Centre for Health Histories is a vibrant community of leading scholars, early career researchers, and research students that provides a vital forum for dissemination and discussion through interdisciplinary networks. Its scope is international and transnational and its topics include:

  • Mental Health provision and treatment
  • Medicine and Nursing in War
  • Professional Regulation
  • Environmental Health
  • Health Humanitarianism
  • Maternity and Infant Welfare
  • Voluntarist responses to health care
  • Institutional Provision
  • Public Health policy

This broad agenda is reflected in the wide range of projects pursued by colleagues in the Centre, which has attracted external funding from sources such as Wellcome, the AHRC and the Economic History Society, among others.