Rate My Professor Lesley Gray

Associate Professor Lesley Gray serves in the Department of Primary Health Care and General Practice at the University of Otago, Wellington, where she joined in 2008 following lecturing positions at Barts and The London School of Medicine and Dentistry. With over 30 years of experience establishing and managing services in public health and primary care, she began her career in 1994 providing support for rural general practitioners and rural hospitals in the Outer Hebrides, Scotland. Gray holds a Masters in Public Health from the University of Glasgow, a Master of Science in Interprofessional Collaboration from London, Fellowship of the UK Faculty of Public Health, and a PhD in Emergency Management from Massey University’s Joint Centre for Disaster Research, completed in 2022. She is an active member of the Applied Research on Communication in Health (ARCH) Group and the Joint Centre for Disaster Research, and serves as New Zealand Principal Investigator for the Research Alliance in Disaster and Emergency Medicine international collaboration.

Gray's research specializations encompass health risk communication and behaviour, health equity, and disaster risk reduction for stigmatised and marginalised groups, including big-bodied people. She led the formation of the TabOO study on Talking About Overweight and Obesity and has directed projects such as improving equity in COVID-19 self-isolation operations, population-based contagion networks, and the built environment for big-bodied people in primary care. Her work has attracted funding from the Health Research Council, Ministry of Health, United States National Science Foundation, and others. Key publications include Gray et al. (2022) 'Sizing up disaster risk reduction: A qualitative study of the voices of big bodied people in Aotearoa New Zealand' in the International Journal of Disaster Risk Reduction; Gray et al. (2021) 'Factors influencing individual ability to follow physical distancing recommendations in Aotearoa New Zealand during the COVID-19 pandemic' in the Journal of the Royal Society of New Zealand; and Gray et al. (2018) 'A taboo topic? How general practitioners talk about overweight and obesity in New Zealand' in the Journal of Primary Health Care. Highly cited works also feature 'Beyond binary: (re)defining “gender” for 21st century disaster risk reduction research, policy, and practice' (2019, 141 citations) and 'Community responses to communication campaigns for influenza A (H1N1)' (2012, 109 citations). In teaching, she convenes the postgraduate paper GENA737 Obesity Prevention and Management, co-convenes sixth-year medical trainee intern modules, and contributes to fourth- and fifth-year programmes. Gray provides free seminars for health professionals and emergency planners and has published nearly 60 peer-reviewed articles. In 2024, she received an Honorary Fellowship from the Royal New Zealand College of General Practitioners for her contributions to general practice education and research, supporting over 1,500 final-year medical students.