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Linda Bauld

Bruce and John Usher Professor of Public Health

Biography

Background

Linda joined the University of Edinburgh in November 2018 from the University of Stirling where she was Professor of Health Policy, Director of the Institute for Social Marketing and Dean of Research Impact. Since 2014 she has combined her academic roles with serving as Cancer Research UK's cancer prevention champion, the CRUK/BUPA Chair in Behavioural Research for Cancer Prevention.

Professor Bauld is a behavioural scientist with a PhD in social policy. Her research focuses on two main areas: the evaluation of complex public health interventions; and the use of evidence to inform health policy. She has conducted studies on drug and alcohol use, inequalities in health, overweight and obesity and, most notably, on smoking cessation and tobacco control. She undertook the first study of the UK's national stop smoking services when they were established in 1998. She has also played a significant role in the monitoring and evaluation of a range of tobacco control policies, and served as the UK government's scientific adviser on tobacco control from 2006 to 2010.

Examples of recent work include: authoring the 3 year review of smokefree legislation in England (published by the Department of Health in 2011); leading (with David Tappin) the world's largest trial of financial incentives for smoking cessation in pregnancy (published 2015); playing a key role in developing smoking cessation in pregnancy guidance in England (2010) and for the World Health Organisation (2013-14); coordinating the development of an independent alcohol strategy for the UK ('Health First', published in March 2013); leading a national review of smoking cessation services for the Scottish government (2013-2014); chairing the NICE programme development group on tobacco harm reduction (2011-2013), and acting as spokesperson for CRUK's obesity policy work in Scotland through the charity's 'Scale Down Cancer' campaign (2016-current). In 2017 she and colleagues were awarded a large Global Challenges Research Fund grant to address tobacco use in Africa and South Asia and Professor Bauld now leads a team or researchers in 6 UK and eight overseas research organisations to build capacity in tobacco control research in low and middle income countries.

Responsibilities & affiliations

Linda chairs, or is a member of, a number of policy and research funding committees in Europe, Canada and the UK. Her work with the media is extensive, and a particular current focus is contributing to ongoing debates on electronic cigarettes and measures to address the price and promotion of HFSS foods. In 2017 she was elected a Fellow of the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh for her contribution to cancer prevention and public health.

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