Research and teaching to reduce ill health
We carry out research and education at the highest international standards of excellence. Our goals are to:
- identify and target the behaviours that lead to chronic disease;
- improve early detection of disease;
- improve the quality of health services;
- deliver first class teaching to medical students, clinicians, researchers and educators.
We have five research themes: Behaviour and Health, Cardiovascular Disease and Diabetes, Cancer, Health Services Research and End of Life Care.
Education and training runs through all our work - for medical students and primary care researchers at every level.
The Primary Care Unit is based within the Department of Public Health and Primary Care at the University of Cambridge, one of Europe’s premier university departments of population health sciences. Professor Jonathan Mant is Head of Unit and our Group leaders are Dr Stephen Barclay, Professor Christi Deaton, Dr Robbie Duschinsky, Professor Simon Griffin, Professor Mary Dixon-Woods, Professor Theresa Marteau, Professor Stephen Sutton and Dr Fiona Walter.
The PCU is a member of the NIHR School for Primary Care Research, which is a partnership between eight leading academic centres for primary care research in England.
See more about the NIHR School for Primary Care Research in Cambridge
SAPC South East conference 'Academic Primary Care: Optimising Impact' 23 & 24 Jan 2020
Registration opens soon.
Abstract submissions and workshop proposals will be invited in September 2019.
Patient and public involvement in research
Patients and the public are key to the design and conduct of research within the Primary Care Unit.
See resources for researchers and read our latest blogs about public engagement.
The Primary Care Unit provides teaching to all Cambridge medical students.
We deliver clinical teaching in general practice, and cover professional skills and palliative care.
Primary Care Unit News
Tess Langfield has won a USD$3000 award from the Health and Behaviour International Collaboration (HBIC) to investigate drinking behaviour using…
Patients with an ‘empathic’ GP at reduced risk of early death
Patients who have been diagnosed with diabetes are at a lower risk of early death if they have a doctor…
Increasing healthy life expectancy equitably in England by 5 years by 2035: could it be achieved?
In this Lancet Comment, Professor Dame Theresa Marteau, Professor Martin White and colleagues explain how increases in healthy life expectancy…