Linda Bauld

Bruce and John Usher Professor of Public Health | Co-Head of Centre for Population Health Sciences

Biography

Background

Linda joined the University of Edinburgh in November 2018. She previously worked at the Universities of Stirling, Bath, Glasgow and Kent. From 2014 to 2021 she combined her academic roles with serving as Cancer Research UK's cancer prevention advisor.

Linda conducts behavioural research within public health, with a particular focus on the prevention of non-communicable diseases and how research evidence informs policy. She has led studies on drug and alcohol use, inequalities in health, overweight and obesity, smoking cessation and more recently on Covid-19. She led 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.

From 2017-2022 she led a Global Challenges Research Fund programme to address tobacco use in Africa and South Asia involving researchers in six UK and eight overseas research organisations. She is currently Director of the SPECTRUM Consortium funded by the UK Prevention Research Partnership that includes ten Universities and multiple partners from public health agencies and alliances. Visit the SPECTRUM website.

In September 2021 she was appointed as Chief Social Policy Adviser to the Scottish Government. This is a part time secondment until 2025.

Qualifications

BA (Hons), PhD, FRCPE, FRSE, FAcSS, FFPH

Responsibilities & affiliations

Professor Bauld is Co-Director, along with Professor David Weller, of the Centre for Population Health Sciences within the Usher Institute. She is Honorary Professor at the University of Stirling and a Trustee of Diabetes UK and the Institute of Alcohol Studies. She is also a member of the Medical Research Council (MRC) Population Systems Medicine Board and the Canadian Institutes for Health Research Institute of Population and Public Health Board. She is a former member or chair of other research committees for National Institute of Health Research (NIHR), Cancer Research UK, the International Agency for Research on Cancer and the European Union.

In 2021 she was awarded an OBE by Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II for her services to guiding public health responses to, and public understanding of, Covid-19.

View all 331 publications on Research Explorer

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