Prof Hayden McRobbie

Professor of Population Health

Wolfson Institute of Public Health, Queen Mary University of London

Biography

Hayden McRobbie is a public health medicine specialist. He is Professor of Population Health at Queen Mary University of London, where he leads the Centre for Public Health and Policy and the Health and Lifestyle Research Unit, and holds clinical oversight of commissioned stop smoking and weight management services across several East London boroughs. He was among the first researchers to study novel nicotine products in a clinical trial setting, running a randomised crossover trial of an early e-cigarette device in 2010 and a randomised trial of a nicotine pouch in 2009. He went on to co-author the landmark 2013 Lancet trial comparing e-cigarettes with nicotine patches for smoking cessation and has continued that line of work ever since.

His broader research and clinical work spans smoking cessation, e-cigarettes, alternative nicotine products and harm reduction, obesity and health equity, with funding from NIHR, NHMRC and the UK Medical Research Council. Before returning to QMUL in 2025, he was Regional Director of New Zealand’s National Public Health Service and spent over a decade as an adviser to the New Zealand Ministry of Health on smoking cessation and tobacco control. He holds fellowships with the New Zealand College of Public Health Medicine, the Australasian Society of Lifestyle Medicine, and the Society for Research on Nicotine and Tobacco.