The Health Protection Research Focus Award in Outbreak Related Behaviours ('the Orb') is one of 15 units and teams funded by National Institute for Health and Care Research (NIHR) for research to protect the public from health threats.

The focus of the Orb is understanding how human behaviour can change during an infectious disease outbreak, how best to support people to protect themselves and others, and how public health and social measures that aim to protect public can have downstream or unintended consequences through their impact on behaviour.

Our team

Our team includes experts from King's College London, the University of East Anglia and the UK Health Security Agency (UKHSA) who have worked together over several decades to understand health protection during an emergency.

We have previously led on national and international studies relating to: the COVID-19 and swine flu pandemics; more localised disease outbreaks and epidemics including mpox and the West African Ebola outbreak; and non-outbreak related incidents including acts of terrorism, natural disasters, nuclear meltdown and assassination attempts.

We have previously advised the UK Government on their response to these incidents and we provide input to multiple international groups including the World Health Organization.

As part of our role, we conduct responsive research to support UKHSA or other Government bodies in relation to emerging or unforeseen needs. If you have a specific research need that you think we might be able help with, please email our Director, Professor James Rubin at orb@kcl.ac.uk.

We are also interested in forming new collaborations to understand people’s responses to new and emerging health risks in general. If you are interested in working with us or need advice on how our work might apply to a topic you are involved with, please do contact us.

Career opportunities

The team leads an award-winning MSc module at King's College London that explores the psychology of disaster response and regularly provides teaching and supervision for students from primary school to PhD. We have an excellent track record of securing internship, PhD and fellowship funding for talented early career researchers. If you are interested in exploring an opportunity with us, please drop us a line.