Alastair Leyland

Alastair obtained his B.Sc. (Hons) in Mathematics and his M.Sc. in Applied Statistics from the University of Southampton and his Ph.D. from the University of Sunderland. He worked at the Public Health Research Unit at the University of Glasgow and, following its merger with the Medical Sociology Unit, has been working at the Social and Public Health Sciences Unit since 1999. Alastair is on the Governing Board of the European Public Health Association (EUPHA), joint President of the Public Health Epidemiology section of EUPHA and a committee member of the Society for Social Medicine. A fellow of the Faculty of Public Health, he was appointed Honorary Professor in the College of Medical, Veterinary and Life Sciences at the University of Glasgow in October 2006. Alastair currently sits on the Public Health Research Funding Board of the National Institute of Health Research. He has been an editor of the European Journal of Public Health since December 2009.

Since 1999 Alastair has been head of the programme on Measuring Health, Variations in Health and the Determinants of Health. His recent research has focussed on inequalities in mortality in Scotland. Other research interests include the application of multilevel modelling to health data, particularly concerning its use as a tool for exploring inequalities, and expanding the uses of routinely collected and linked hospital discharge, mortality and register data (see, for example, population health in Scotland and the longitudinal effects of context on health). Alastair has also given a number of training courses with Professor Peter Groenewegen from the Netherlands Centre for Health Services Research: Health in Context: A course in Multilevel Modelling for Public Health and Health Services Research.