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Development of a Heath Literacy Toolkit for Public Health Practitioners to Support Disadvantaged Communities

Doctoral Training Grant Funding Information

This funding model includes a 36 month fully funded PhD Studentship, set in-line with the Research Council values. For 2025/6, this will be £20,780 per year. The tax-free stipend will be paid monthly. This PhD Studentship also includes a Full-Time Home Fee Scholarship for up to 3 years. The funding is subject to your continued registration on the research degree, making satisfactory progression within your PhD, as well as attendance on and successful completion of the Postgraduate Certificate in Research Practice. 

All applicants will receive the same stipend irrespective of fee status.

Application Closing Date:
Midday (UK Time) on Wednesday 16th April 2025 for a start date of the 1st September 2025.

How to Apply

To apply, please follow the below steps:

  1. Complete the BCU Online Application Form here: Social Sciences PhDs.
  2. Complete the Doctoral Studentship Proposal Form in full, ensuring that you quote the project ID. You will be required to upload your proposal in place of a personal statement on the BCU online application form.
  3. Upload two references to your online application form (at least one of which must be an academic reference).
  4. Upload your qualification(s) for entry onto the research degree programme. This will be Bachelor/Master’s certificate(s) and transcript(s).
  5. International applicants must also provide a valid English language qualification. Please see the list of English language qualifications accepted here. Please check the individual research degree course page for the required scores.

Frequently Asked Questions

To help support you to complete your application, please consult the frequently asked questions below:

If your question is not answered above and you need any further information, please use the contact details below: 

- For enquiries about the project content, please contact: Atiya.Kamal@bcu.ac.uk

- For enquiries about the application procedure, please contact: research.admissions@bcu.ac.uk

Project Title: Development of a Heath Literacy Toolkit for Public Health Practitioners to Support Disadvantaged Communities

Project lead: Professor Atiya Kamal

Project ID: 44114424

Project Description:

Health literacy refers to accessible information and health services that provide information in a way that allows individuals to make decisions about their health. If information and services are not accessible, then there is a risk of poorer health outcomes. To avoid this outcome, health literacy tools are needed to support organisations, such as public health teams, that are responsible for sharing health information. Current health literacy tools do not focus on public health which supports regional population level groups. Developing a tool which can help public health teams to develop information in a way that is more meaningful could help people lower their risk of health conditions such as high blood pressure.  

The aim of this research project is to identify existing tools that are available to support health literacy, interview people that develop or use information from public health teams to understand the challenges of using a health literacy tool and develop and test a health literacy tool on a public health campaign.    

Anticipated findings and contribution to knowledge:

Improving levels of health literacy is an important public health strategy designed to improve health and wellbeing and minimise health inequalities. It can increase health knowledge and build resilience, encourage positive lifestyle change, empower people to effectively manage long-term health conditions and reduce the burden on health and social care services. The findings of this PhD research will inform the development of a toolkit to support public health practitioners to develop health campaigns that are more accessible in disadvantaged communities. It will synthesise the evidence of existing tools and identify gaps. It will also contribute to our understanding around public health practitioner needs in relation to a health literacy tool (outside of NHS and individual level interventions). The project is designed to work within existing organisational processes and aims to reduce health inequalities as an outcome of public health teams using the health literacy tool.  

The findings of this research and the resource that will be developed has the potential to provide a blueprint for improving health literacy at an organisational level across different regions and different health conditions. Making information more accessible at the outset has the potential to improve health outcomes in Birmingham and more widely across the UK. 

Person Specification:

International applicants must also provide a valid English language qualification, such as International English Language Test System (IELTS) or equivalent with an overall score of 6.5 with no band below 6.0.