Professor Paul Elliott trained in clinical medicine and epidemiology as a Wellcome Trust Clinical Fellow at St Mary’s Hospital London and the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine. He studied for his PhD in Epidemiology on the INTERSALT Study under the mentorship of Professor Geoffrey Rose. He remained at the London School working as a lecturer, and subsequently as senior lecturer and reader in epidemiology before being appointed as Head of the Environmental Epidemiology Unit at LSHTM 1990. In 1995 he was appointed to the Chair in Epidemiology and Public Health Medicine at Imperial College London. Since then he has managed the transformation of the Department of Public Health into the present Department of Epidemiology and Biostatistics in the School of Public Health. The Department has expanded significantly during recent years to encompass a wide-ranging programme of health research and extensive collaborations with national and international research groups, hosting both honorary and visiting staff.
Paul Elliott is also Director of the MRC Centre for Environment and Health, which was launched in 2009 (as the MRC-PHE Centre for Environment and Health in collaboration with King’s College London) and forms a major part of the Department. The UK Small Area Health Statistics Unit (SAHSU) is also based in the department.
Paul Elliott is an honorary consultant in public health medicine in the Directorate of Primary Care and Public Health of the Imperial College Healthcare NHS Trust. His contribution to public health research, most recently in response to the COVID-19 pandemic as director of the REACT community surveillance study was recognised with the award of a CBE in the 2021 Queen’s Birthday Honours List.