Keeping our focus on suicide prevention
Preventing suicide is an important area of work for PHE.
Kevin Fenton
Professor Kevin Fenton, MD, PhD, FFPH, is the Public Health England National Director for Health and Wellbeing. In this role he oversees PHE's national prevention programmes including screening for cancer and other conditions, Health Checks, national health marketing campaigns, public mental health, and a range of wellbeing programmes for infants, youth, adults and older adults. The Health and Wellbeing Directorate also leads PHE's Health Equity portfolio with a range of programmes and activities focused on addressing the social determinants of health, and promoting settings-based approaches to health improvement.
Professor Fenton was previously the director of the National Center for HIV/AIDS, Viral Hepatitis, STD, and TB Prevention (NCHHSTP), Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), a position he held for seven years from November 2005. He also served as chief of CDC’s National Syphilis Elimination Effort and has worked in research, epidemiology, and the prevention of HIV and other STDs since 1995. Previously he was the director of the HIV and STI Department at the United Kingdom’s Health Protection Agency.
He attended medical school in Jamaica, obtained his master's in public health at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, and PhD in Infectious Disease Epidemiology at the University College London. He has authored or co-authored more than 250 peer-reviewed scientific articles and policy reports. He is a speaker in great demand and speaks Spanish and French.
Reaching further, moving faster for health and wellbeing in 2016
The end of 2016 marks the fourth year since the creation of PHE’s health and wellbeing directorate – a dynamic period marked by many major accomplishments and new challenges.
Smoking in young people with mental health conditions – what do we know and what can we do?
In June 2015, we launched our guidance on smoking in secure mental health settings. The guidance summarised the strong evidence base relating to the harms of smoking for adults with mental health conditions and what could be practically implemented to …
Hertfordshire e-cigarettes policy aims to help smokers quit
The number of people in the UK using e-cigarettes has risen rapidly – quadrupling to 2.8 million adult vapers over the past four years. Importantly, the data shows that regular use of e-cigarettes in the UK is almost entirely confined …
Expert interview: Carrying out our alcohol evidence review
What’s the public health impact of alcohol and what is the effectiveness of policies for reducing alcohol-related harm? PHE’s new evidence review seeks to answer those questions and you’ll find the full document on GOV.UK and an abridged version published …
Health Matters: Increasing the uptake of HIV testing
Welcome to the latest edition of Health Matters, a resource for local authorities and health professionals, which focuses on increasing the uptake of HIV testing in England (listen to our launch teleconference podcast). The UK has a long and proud …
Looking back at the PHE annual conference
Planning a conference that covers such a broad field as public health is no small challenge, but I have been delighted to hear lots of positive feedback from those who attended PHE’s Annual Conference a few weeks ago, including delegates …
Building knowledge and skills in public mental health
Providing the right training and building the capacity of the workforce to promote mental health and wellbeing and prevent mental illness is essential if we are to reduce health inequalities and increase skills in enabling people to recognise and manage …
Climate change and public health: a challenge and an opportunity
“Climate change is the biggest challenge that our civilisation has ever had to face up to.” This was the opening statement from Sir David King when he delivered our inaugural Distinguished Lecture on climate change and planetary health at the …
World Heart Day - how can we prevent cardiovascular disease?
Today is World Heart Day – an important opportunity to put the spotlight on cardiovascular disease, which still remains the second highest cause of death in England. Many of these deaths are preventable, and today PHE has published a new …