Professor Lindsay Forbes

Clinical Professor of Public Health || Academic Lead, NIHR Health Determinants Research Collaboration Medway || Public Health Theme Lead, Applied Research Collaboration, Kent Surrey Sussex || Public Health Specialty Lead Kent Surrey Sussex Clinical Research Network

MBBS, BSc(Medical Sociology), MSc(Public Health), MD(Res), MRCP(UK), FFPH

About

I carry out public health research into the prevention of ill health and organisation of primary care. I am a champion for developing research capacity and culture in local government public health.

Research interests

• Using evidence to inform policy
• Promoting early diagnosis
• Building evidence for prevention of ill health focusing on the root causes (physical, economic and psychosocial)
• Building research capacity and capability

Currently Researching

Research culture and capacity in local government public health

• Leading the ARC KSS Public Health Research Network to join up academia and local government across Kent Surrey and Sussex
• Working closely with Medway Council, which hosts an NIHR Health Determinants Research Collaboration
• Coordinating embedded researchers in local government public health for the NIHR Clinical Research Network Kent Surrey Sussex

Improving health in young people

• Leading a project to evaluate an intervention for young people at risk of criminal exploitation
• Working closely with Brighton and Sussex Medical School on a project to evaluate a hope-focused intervention for young women not in employment, education or training in coastal towns

Primary care organisation

• Researching the role of incentivisation to improve quality in general practice

Health in coastal towns

• Working closely with Brighton and Sussex Medical School on a project to evaluate a hope-focused intervention for young women not in employment, education or training in coastal towns
• Studying ways of measuring health in places, with a particular focus on coastal towns

NHS as anchor institution

• Working with the NIHR ARC National Priority Consortium for Health and Care Inequalities

For current grants please see my ORCID profile 0000-0002-4654-9520

Background

A public health physician with long experience of practising public health as well as researching it, I joined CHSS in January 2016 from King’s College London, where I co-led a research group researching pathways to care in cancer and ways of speeding up diagnosis. I also advised the Department of Health on cancer policy including the Be Clear on Cancer campaigns. I played a major role in developing an innovative evidence-based approach to information about cancer screening in England, aiming to offer informed choice (information I co-developed is still in use, sent to millions of people each year). Before 2008, I was consultant in public health medicine in Wandsworth PCT, where I was clinical effectiveness lead and provided public health advice on acute commissioning and cancer services, alongside a role in St George’s, University of London studying the epidemiology of chronic disease in relation to air quality.

I trained in academic public health medicine 1995-2001 in London, where I was lucky to have a joint NHS-university post in South London health authorities and King’s College London. Before that I spent several years in acute hospital medicine after qualifying in 1988 from Guys, King’s and St Thomas’ Medical School (then the United Medical and Dental Schools of Guy’s and St Thomas’ Hospitals).

Supervision

Currently supervising postgraduate students

– Salmaan Ansari
– Katherine Buckeridge
– Sarah Spencer
– Tim Woodhouse
– Kate Birrell

Professional

GMC Specialist Register Public Health

External examiner for Masters in Public Health, University of Southampton
External PhD examiner (various)

Publications

Last updated 5 December 2023