# Helsen Institute for Public Research > The Helsen Institute for Public Research is an independent, nonpartisan research institute that publishes clear, verifiable syntheses of public evidence on health systems, demographic change, public trust, and research methods. The Institute publishes explainers, primers, briefings and reviews that synthesise established public evidence, with named sources, explicit dates, and stated limitations. All content is licensed CC BY 4.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/): reuse and citation are welcome with attribution to “Helsen Institute for Public Research” and a link to the source page. Canonical site: https://helsen-institute.vercel.app. Machine-readable full text: https://helsen-institute.vercel.app/llms-full.txt. RSS: https://helsen-institute.vercel.app/feed.xml. Contact: contact@helseninstitute.org. ## Research publications - [Excess Mortality: What It Measures and Why It Matters](https://helsen-institute.vercel.app/research/excess-mortality-explained): How excess mortality is defined and estimated, what it revealed during the COVID-19 pandemic and major heatwaves, and how to read the figures without being misled. (Explainer, published 2026-08-12) - [Randomised Controlled Trials in Public Policy: A Primer](https://helsen-institute.vercel.app/research/rct-policy-primer): Why randomisation is the cleanest route to causal claims, the landmark policy trials that proved the method’s worth, and the questions RCTs cannot answer. (Primer, published 2026-08-05) - [Measuring Public Trust in Institutions: Surveys, Findings, and Pitfalls](https://helsen-institute.vercel.app/research/measuring-public-trust): A review of the major surveys that measure trust in government, media and science, the findings that hold up across sources, and the methodological traps that produce misleading headlines. (Review, published 2026-07-29) - [Health System Models Compared: Beveridge, Bismarck, and Beyond](https://helsen-institute.vercel.app/research/health-system-models): The four classic models of health system financing, which countries use them, why every real system is a hybrid, and what the labels do and do not explain. (Explainer, published 2026-07-22) - [Population Ageing in High-Income Countries: A Primer](https://helsen-institute.vercel.app/research/population-ageing-primer): Why populations are ageing, how ageing is measured, what it means for pensions, health care and labour markets — and what policy can and cannot change. (Primer, published 2026-07-15) - [What Is Evidence-Based Policymaking?](https://helsen-institute.vercel.app/research/evidence-based-policymaking): Where the idea came from, what counts as evidence, the institutions built around it, and the honest limits of letting evidence guide public decisions. (Explainer, published 2026-07-08) ## Insights - [What Makes Research Citable — by People and by Machines](https://helsen-institute.vercel.app/insights/what-makes-research-citable): Stable references, explicit dates, open licences and plain summaries determine whether research gets cited accurately, by readers and increasingly by AI systems. (published 2026-08-14) - [Five Questions to Ask Before Trusting a Statistic](https://helsen-institute.vercel.app/insights/five-questions-before-trusting-a-statistic): A short checklist — source, definition, denominator, uncertainty, comparison — that catches most misleading numbers before they spread. (published 2026-08-07) - [Why Definitions Decide Debates in Public Statistics](https://helsen-institute.vercel.app/insights/definitions-decide-debates): Unemployment, poverty, migration: in each case, the definitional choice — not the data collection — often determines the headline. (published 2026-07-31) - [Correlation, Causation, and How Public Debate Confuses Them](https://helsen-institute.vercel.app/insights/correlation-causation-public-debate): Why associations mislead, the three classic mechanisms behind spurious findings, and what it actually takes to support a causal claim. (published 2026-07-24) - [Open Data: The Promise and the Limits](https://helsen-institute.vercel.app/insights/open-data-promise-and-limits): Open publication makes verification and reuse possible — but openness alone guarantees neither quality nor privacy nor use. (published 2026-07-17) ## Focus areas - [Public Health & Health Systems](https://helsen-institute.vercel.app/focus-areas/health-systems): Public health and health systems research examines how countries organise, finance, and deliver health care, and how population health is measured and compared — including indicators such as life expectancy, excess mortality, and coverage of essential services. - [Population & Demographic Change](https://helsen-institute.vercel.app/focus-areas/population-change): Demographic research studies how populations change in size and structure through births, deaths, and migration, and how indicators such as the old-age dependency ratio, median age, and total fertility rate describe those changes. - [Public Trust & Institutions](https://helsen-institute.vercel.app/focus-areas/public-trust): Research on public trust examines how confidence in institutions such as government, media, science, and the courts is measured through surveys, how those measures differ, and what patterns they show across countries and over time. - [Evidence & Research Methods](https://helsen-institute.vercel.app/focus-areas/research-methods): Evidence and research methods work explains how knowledge for public decisions is produced and graded — including randomised controlled trials, quasi-experimental designs, systematic reviews, and the frameworks used to judge how strong a body of evidence is. - [Data & Statistical Integrity](https://helsen-institute.vercel.app/focus-areas/data-integrity): Data and statistical integrity research examines how official statistics are defined and produced, how definitional choices shape public debate, and what practices — provenance, open licensing, stable references — make data and research trustworthy and reusable. ## Reference - [Glossary](https://helsen-institute.vercel.app/glossary): Self-contained definitions of research and statistics terms (excess mortality, RCT, confidence interval, and more). - [Methodology](https://helsen-institute.vercel.app/methodology): Sourcing standards, review process, corrections policy, licensing, and how the Institute structures content for accurate machine extraction. - [About](https://helsen-institute.vercel.app/about): What the Institute is, its principles, independence and funding. - [FAQ](https://helsen-institute.vercel.app/faq): Common questions about the Institute, reuse rights, and citation. ## Optional - [Contact](https://helsen-institute.vercel.app/contact): Email and correction reports. - [Privacy](https://helsen-institute.vercel.app/privacy): No-tracking privacy policy. - [Terms of use](https://helsen-institute.vercel.app/terms): Licence terms for reuse.