Postgraduate prospectus

Staff profile

Professor Ken Judge MA PhD FFPH
Head of the School for Health

Professor Judge came to the School in September 2006 from the University of Glasgow where he was Professor of Health Policy in the Faculty of Medicine, having previously held a similar chair at the University of Kent. Prior to that, he spent eleven years as Director of the King’s Fund Policy Institute, building it up from scratch to become the leading centre of health policy and research it is today.

Professor Judge’s arrival at the School has served to further promote and strengthen the School's research profile – a former member of the Research Priorities Board of the Economic and Social Research Council, he is currently a member of the Scientific Reference Group responsible for advising Ministers at Westminster about research aspects of the cross-government programme to tackle health inequalities.

In the past few years, Ken’s main research interests have involved the evaluation of complex community-based interventions intended to promote population health – most notably two evaluations funded by the Department of Health on Health Action Zones and smoking cessation services in England, as well as the Scottish Executive-funded evaluations of the national health demonstration projects ‘Have a Heart’ and ‘Starting Well’ – for coronary heart disease and early child development respectively.

Professor Judge has published widely on many aspects of public health and health policy but is probably best known for this work on health inequalities, including the provision of research advice to the Scottish Executive in relation to the implementation of free personal care for elderly people, assisting the Department of Health to develop proposals for policy on tackling health inequalities and the production of a review for the New Zealand Treasury about the significance of poverty and income inequality in relation to health inequalities.