Associate Professor Marita Hefler has been appointed as the new Editor-in-Chief of the BMJ specialist publication Tobacco Control. She first joined Tobacco Control in 2012 as News Editor, became a Senior Editor in 2021 and will officially commence her new role at the start of 2024.
A/Prof Marita Hefler is a Principal Research Fellow at Menzies School of Health Research. She has nearly 20 years’ experience in tobacco control, with a particular focus on equity and moving towards the tobacco endgame.
Biography
https://www.menzies.edu.au/page/Our_People/Researchers/Marita_Hefler/
Marita’s research program within the Global and Tropical Health Division focuses on paradigm-shifting tobacco control policy and ‘endgame’ strategies such as phasing out commercial sales of cigarettes. She has broad experience in tobacco control research, including use of social media to reduce smoking among First Nations peoples, smoke free prisons, youth smoking and monitoring tobacco industry activities. Achieving equity in smoking prevalence reductions is a high priority in her work.
Marita has particular expertise in qualitative research approaches, monitoring and evaluation. She has designed and led several research projects and evaluations of public health programs in partnership with Australian Indigenous communities and previously in South East Asia. Her sectoral experience spans mental health, lifecourse approaches to understanding health trajectories and disparities, youth health, health communication and justice.
Since joining Menzies, Marita has contributed to over $7 million in research and consultancy funding, including a Heart Foundation Australia Post-Doctoral Fellowship and two National Health & Medical Research Council-funded projects.
