Dr Richard Sharpe is a Consultant in Public Health and an environmental epidemiologist (with a PhD with the University of Exeter Medical School) working in the public health team at Cornwall Council. Richard leads on a public health portfolio including mental health and suicide prevention, learning disability/autism, sexual and reproductive health, drugs and alcohol, social prescribing and is a speciality tutor for Health Education England.

He has an established academic background with an interest in translating evidence into his public health practice and the impacts of wider determinants of health. Richard is experienced in primary and secondary research methodologies, including the use of large data. Richard has worked with multidisciplinary teams on a number of research areas including the above portfolio responsibilities as well as air pollution, whole system approaches to improving public health through housing, and a range of service evaluations. These include understanding the effectiveness of public health interventions such as those aiming to improve the mental health and wellbeing of local population through to specific services such as fuel poverty interventions, healthy weight programmes and social prescribing.

As a Senior Honorary Research Fellow with the University of Exeter, Richard has worked in collaboration across a range of research projects such an Eaga Charitable Trust funded project, SenseWell and the Smartline project. Other research projects include understanding the mental health and wellbeing needs of local communities, intergenerational support, social prescribing on the health and wellbeing of autistic adults, physical activity in older adults and Health and Housing project. Richard also has an interest in environmental management, which includes for example assessing whether water conservation strategies offered a sustainable approach to meeting the supply and demand balance and off-set future climate change risks, published in the Water and Environment Journal.