Rate My Professor Nick Wilson

Professor Nick Wilson is a Professor of Public Health in the Department of Public Health, Faculty of Medicine at the University of Otago, Wellington. He holds the degrees MB ChB, DIH, and MPH, having trained as a medical doctor and specialized as a public health physician before moving into university-based research. In his current role as a research professor of public health, he serves as Co-Director of the Public Health Communication Centre and Editor-in-Chief of its publication, The Briefing. He is also Director of the Burden of Disease Epidemiology, Equity and Cost-Effectiveness Programme (BODE³). Professor Wilson is entirely focused on research and not taking on student supervision.

His research interests include the health economics of primary prevention as part of the BODE³ Programme, tobacco use epidemiology and control through the International Tobacco Control (ITC) Project, infectious disease control with a focus on pandemic influenza and other diseases, climate change and air pollution, and strategies to prevent and build resilience against catastrophic risks such as severe pandemics and nuclear war. He has produced over 450 peer-reviewed publications indexed in Medline, accumulating more than 21,000 citations in Scopus. Key publications encompass 'Why Do People Attack Military Statues? A National Survey Experiment' (2024), research on health-impaired world leaders and nuclear war risks (2025), New Zealand's potential to produce food in a nuclear winter (2023), differential lifespan impacts on First World War veterans (2022), and lessons from lead removal from gasoline for other pollutants (2008). His contributions have informed public health policy, including technical advice during the COVID-19 pandemic.