Our history

Established in July 2013 as the Nuffield Department of Population Health, the department brought together leading research units whose work has shaped healthcare delivery in the UK and internationally. In 2021, it was rebranded as Oxford Population Health to reflect its distinctive focus on population health science and its commitment to preventing avoidable suffering and death.

Based at the University of Oxford’s Old Road Campus, the department is housed in the Richard Doll Building—named after the eminent epidemiologist Professor Sir Richard Doll—and the Big Data Institute/Oxford Population Health Building. It is one of the largest departments within the Medical Sciences Division, fostering collaboration across disciplines and borders, and drawing on evidence from large-scale studies to address some of the most pressing questions in global health.