Professor Kate Hunt

Professor

Institute for Social Marketing University of Stirling, Stirling, FK9 4LA

Professor Kate Hunt

Contact details

About me

Kate joined the University of Stirling in 2018 as Professor in Behavioural Sciences and Health, in the Institute for Social Marketing and Health. Before moving to Stirling, she worked for many years in the MRC Social and Public Health Sciences Unit at the University of Glasgow. Kate graduated in Human Sciences at the University of Oxford and has maintained a multi-disciplinary focus throughout her working life. She gained her Masters from the University of Oxford (Use and Effects of hormone replacement therapy), and her PhD from the University of Glasgow (Gender and Health). She has a longstanding interest in inequalities in health and in Gender and Health (moving from an early interest in women’s health to a focus on men, masculinities and health). In recent years, her research has focused on the development and evaluation of public health interventions and policy. This has included culturally-sensitised interventions delivered through professional sports clubs to attract and engage people in long-term positive behaviour change (such as healthy weight and physical activity interventions, and the prevention of gambling harms). She has an interest in the health of people living and working in prisons, including the process and impacts of the implementation of smoke free policies in prisons. Covid-related research includes the impact of the early stages of the pandemic on gambling behaviours amongst sports bettors and young people, the experience and impacts of long Covid, people's attitudes to vaccination, and the management and mitigation of risks of infection at sporting mega events. Kate has served on several UK funding boards, including MRC Population and Systems Medicine Board, NIHR Public Health Research funding board, and MRC Population Health Intervention Development Scheme. She is Chair of CSO's Health Improvement, Protection and Services Committee (2022-), and was a Trustee for the Foundation for Medical Sociology. She was President of the UK Society for Social Medicine and Population Health from 2020-1. Kate is an Honorary Professor at the University of Glasgow, and Curtin University, Australia.

Kate’s research experience and interests have covered a wide range of areas including: gender, health, health behaviours and help-seeking; experiences of health and illness; commercial/media influences on health; designing and evaluating gender-sensitive interventions; using community settings (e.g. professional sports clubs) to deliver novel and appealing health interventions; evaluation of policy change within the Scottish prison service; prisoner health; people's experience of illness (including long Covid).

Other Academic Activities

Honorary Professor, Curtin University

Honorary Professor, University of Glasgow

Professional membership

President, Society for Social Medicine and Population Health

Fellow, Royal Society of Edinburgh

Research programmes

Research centres/groups

Research themes