Professor Richard Edwards

Chief Investigator - NHMRC Centre of Research Excellence on Achieving the Tobacco Endgame. Associate Investigator - The Interdisciplinary Tobacco Endgame Research Network (INTER-Net)

Professor of Public Health, Co-Director of ASPIRE Aotearoa, Department of Public Health, University of Otago, Wellington, New Zealand

Researcher biography

Professor Richard Edwards is a Professor of Public Health at the Department of Public Health, University of Otago, Wellington. He is co-Director of ASPIRE Aotearoa Research Centre and Whakahā o te Pā Harakeke research programme. He is also co-principal investigator of the Evidence for Achieving Smokefree Aotearoa Equitably (EASE) study (New Zealand arm of the International Tobacco Control (ITC) Evaluation project). Richard is a Fellow of the New Zealand College of Public Health Medicine and of the Society of Research on Nicotine and Tobacco and serves on various expert advisory committees, including for Hāpai Te Hauora National Tobacco Advocacy Service and the Health Coalition Aotearoa.

He trained as a public health physician in the UK and has over 20 years of experience in tobacco control practice and research in the UK and New Zealand. His main research interests are in tobacco use epidemiology and tobacco control, focusing particularly on population-based tobacco control policies, tobacco endgames and research to help achieve a tobacco free Aotearoa/New Zealand.

Institutional webpage: https://www.otago.ac.nz/wellington/departments/publichealth/staff/otago023413.html