Rate My Professor Petra Meier

Professor Petra Meier is Professor of Public Health at the University of Glasgow's School of Health and Wellbeing, having joined the MRC/CSO Social and Public Health Sciences Unit in July 2020, where she leads the Systems Science in Public Health Programme and the Healthy Social Systems Lab. Prior to this, she was Professor of Public Health at the University of Sheffield, Director of the Wellcome Doctoral Training Centre in Public Health Economics and Decision Science—securing funding for 55 PhD studentships—and founder of the Sheffield Alcohol Research Group, renowned for interdisciplinary research on alcohol policy, including minimum unit pricing, taxation, and drinking guidelines. She holds honorary positions as Visiting Professor at the University of Johannesburg, Honorary Professor at the University of Stirling and Public Health England/OHID.

Meier's research specializations encompass cross-government policies to maximize health and wellbeing, with a focus on health inequalities linked to political, economic, social, and environmental factors, climate justice, and systems science methodologies including methodological triangulation. She directs the SIPHER consortium (£6.7 million, UKPRP-funded, 2019-2025), developing interdisciplinary frameworks blending qualitative, data science, epidemiology, and modelling for policy in inclusive economies, housing, and public mental health. She also leads HealthMod (£7.5 million UKRI, 2024-2028) on policy modelling for health inequalities, serves as Co-Principal Investigator for GALLANT (£10.3 million NERC, 2022-2027) advancing climate-resilient cities via Doughnut Economics, and is Academic Lead for Healthy and Equitable Futures in Glasgow Changing Futures. A Fellow of the Academy of Social Sciences (FAcSS), she has served on the NIHR Public Health Research Funding Committee and editorial boards for Addiction (2010), Drugs: Education, Prevention, and Policy (2010-2023), and Nordic Studies on Alcohol and Drugs (2017).

Key publications include the edited volume What Determines Harm from Addictive Substances and Behaviours? (Oxford University Press, 2016); "Participatory systems mapping: a review of population health research practice" (Health Research Policy and Systems, 2026); "Using Doughnut Economics to structure whole-system thinking with multidisciplinary stakeholders – a Soft Systems approach" (Urban Transformations, 2026); "The effect of climate mitigation and adaptation policies on health and health inequalities: a systematic review" (The Lancet Planetary Health, 2025); and "SIPHER Learning and Evaluation 2019-25" (2025). Her work has significant impact through evidence-based tools informing public health policy.