Rate My Professor Peter Craig

Professor Peter Craig is the Professor of Public Health Evaluation in the Health Economics & Health Technology Assessment department within the MRC/CSO Social and Public Health Sciences Unit, School of Health and Wellbeing, University of Glasgow. He studied social policy at the Universities of Leeds and Bristol, and epidemiology at the University of Edinburgh. Before joining the University of Glasgow in 2014, he served as a researcher and research manager for the UK and Scottish Governments. From 2006 to 2011, he combined this role with managing the MRC Population Health Sciences Research Network. Recently, after five years co-leading the Inequalities in Health programme at the SPHSU, he joined the HEHTA section.

Craig's research specializations centre on the development and application of robust methods for the evaluation of policies and interventions affecting population health. He is particularly interested in natural experimental approaches to evaluate interventions that cannot be randomised and in evaluability assessments to inform decisions about evaluating complex public health interventions. His contributions have shaped methodological advancements, including lead authorship on "Using natural experiments to evaluate population health interventions: a framework for producers, funders, publishers and users of evidence" (2025, Public Health Research, 13(3)) and "Using natural experiments to evaluate population health and health system interventions: new framework for producers and users of evidence" (2025, BMJ, 388:e080505). Other notable publications include "Estimating the causal effects of income on health: how researchers’ definitions of “income” matter" (2024, BMC Public Health), "Unlocking data: decision-maker perspectives on cross-sectoral data sharing and linkage" (2024, Public Health Research), "The health impact of Scotland's Baby Box Scheme: a natural experiment evaluation" (2023, Lancet Public Health), and "Implementation of a national smoke-free prison policy: an economic evaluation" (2023, Tobacco Control). Craig has attracted significant funding, co-leading PHIRST Fusion (NIHR, 2025-2030), OPTIMA (NIHR, 2024-2027), and other projects evaluating real-world public health interventions. He delivers teaching, seminars, and workshops on evaluation methods and supervises doctoral students investigating health inequalities and policy effects.