Linda Bauld
Bruce and John Usher Professor of Public Health | Co-Head of Centre for Population Health Sciences
- Usher Institute
- College of Medicine and Veterinary Medicine
Contact details
Address
- Street
-
Centre for Population Health Sciences
Usher Institute, Usher Building
The University of Edinburgh
5-7 Little France Road
Edinburgh BioQuarter ‒ Gate 3 - City
- Edinburgh
- Post code
- EH16 4UX
Background
Professor Bauld returned to the University of Edinburgh in November 2018 (following her PhD in 1997) to take up the Usher Chair, the oldest academic chair in public health in the world. She previously worked at the Universities of Stirling, Bath, Glasgow and Kent. She has combined her academic roles with policy and practice secondments over a number of years. Most recently (since 2021) she serves as the Chief Social Policy Adviser to the Scottish Government. Immediately before that (2014-2021) she was Cancer Research UK's Cancer Prevention Adviser.
Linda conducts behavioural research within public health, with a particular focus on the prevention of non-communicable diseases and how research evidence informs policy. Much of her research has focused on nicotine and tobacco - including conducting the first study of the UK's stop smoking services and more recently prospective studies and randomised controlled trials examining the effectiveness of smokefree legislation, financial incentives, e-cigarettes, pharmacotherapy and behavioural support. She has also conducted studies on policies and interventions to address drug and alcohol use, overweight and obesity and has worked with colleagues from several disciplines and sectors to better understand and address health inequalities and the wider determinants of health.
From 2017-2022 she led a Global Challenges Research Fund programme to build capacity in tobacco control research in eight countries in Africa and South Asia. From 2019 to 2025 she was Director of the SPECTRUM Consortium funded by the UK Prevention Research Partnership, focusing on the commercial determinants of health. She is currently PI and Co-Director of Behavioural Research UK (BR-UK), a leadership hub for behavioural research funded by the Economic and Social Research Council.
Qualifications
BA (Hons), PhD, OBE, FMedSci, FRSE, FRCPE, FAcSS, FFPH, FRSPH (Hon)
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 Vice Chair of Diabetes UK and an Honorary Professor at the University of Stirling. She is also a board member of the Faculty of Public Health, the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh and the Academy of Social Sciences. She chairs Cancer Research UK’s international cancer prevention advisory group and is a member of the scientific advisory group for Our Future Health and the Canadian Institutes for Health Research Institute of Population and Public Health. She is a former member or chair of other research committees including for the Medical Research Council, National Institute of Health Research and the International Agency for Research on Cancer, among others.
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.