Professor Phil Hanlon

Phil Hanlon was educated in the West of Scotland and graduated in medicine from Glasgow University in 1978.  Following a period of clinical experience in adult medicine and general practice he took up a research post with the Medical Research Council in the Gambia, West Africa.  On returning to the UK he completed a period of training in public health after which he was appointed to the post of Director of Health Promotion for the Greater Glasgow Health Board.  In 1994 he became a Senior Lecturer in Public health at the University of Glasgow and was promoted to Professor in 1999. Between January 2001 and April 2003 Phil undertook a secondment to establish the Public health Institute of Scotland before returning to full-time academic life as Professor of Public Health at the University of Glasgow.

Phil is Principal Investigator for the Culture and Well-being study, funded by the National Programme for Improving Mental Health and Well-being in Scotland, part of the Scottish Government's Mental Health Division.  The Culture and Well-being study also has strong links with the Glasgow Centre for Population Health and the Centre for Confidence and Well-being.

Dr Sandra Carlisle

Sandra Carlisle was born in Wallasey in 1954 but did not get around to going to university until 1990.  As a mature student at Keele University she studied English language and literature, and medical social anthropology and sociology: the latter led to a life-long love of research in this field.  Over the years since then she has been involved in numerous health- and policy-related research and evaluation projects, in both academic and voluntary sector settings across the nations of the UK.

At the Tayside Centre for General Practice in Dundee she conducted an ethnographic study of GP home visits to older patients, in order to provide a better understanding of the complexities involved in such care.  She then moved to Inverness, to work with the Princess Royal Highland Carers Project on a lottery-funded study exploring the nature of informal community support available to carers across the Highland region.  Cardiff followed, with an evaluation of the Primary Care Development Project for the Welsh Government, based the Department of Education for General Practice.  Wanting to gain a PhD before old age really set in, she then took up an ESRC studentship with Edinburgh University’s Public Health Department.  Next came a return to Keele University, and four years fieldwork in Wales, evaluating the Welsh Assembly Government’s community-based Sustainable Health Action Research Programme.

In February 2006 she joined the Public Health Section of Glasgow University  to work with Phil Hanlon on a three year research project investigating the influence of ‘modern culture’ on our well-being.   That study, funded initially by the National Programme for Improving Mental Health & Well-being in Scotland, led to the development of this website, where we hope to share our findings and insights with the public health community and others.  The Culture and Well-being study has strong links with the Glasgow Centre for Population Health and the Centre for Confidence and Well-being.

Dr Andrew Lyon

Andrew Lyon was born in Kilmarnock in 1954.  He left school at 16, working in a tailor’s shop and then a hi-fi store before becoming a carpet weaver in 1973. He studied sociology and economics at Edinburgh University 1976-80.   He conducted research for his PhD in India between 1981 –83 and again in 1985.  Based in two villages in North India, he looked at the relationship between family building patterns, the social organisation of childbirth, the economy, society and environment.  Following a short spell as a research associate at the University of Edinburgh and a researcher on the 1981 Labour Force Survey, he went to the Vale of Leven Health Promotion Project.  Based at Polaroid (UK) Ltd, this project was a factory based, community oriented programme.  In 1986 he became co-ordinator of the Glasgow Healthy Cities Project, part of the WHO Europe programme.  During this period he also acted as a consultant for the WHO in Europe and Bangladesh.

He moved to Forward Scotland, the sustainable development charity, as development manager in 1996, becoming acting chief executive in 2000.  He left in May 2001, joining the International Futures Forum (IFF) as Converger.    The IFF is a non-profit organisation established to support transformative responses to complex and confounding challenges, and to restore our capacity for effective action in a change of age.

Andrew has engaged in voluntary activity for most of his adult life, including a spell as the Scottish Director of Sustrans, the cycle path charity.  He was, until recently, a founding director at Common Wheel, a charity which helped rehabilitating mental health patients to recycle bicycles at prices people can afford.  Currently he is a director of Community Renewal, a charity which supports people living in deprived circumstances to fulfil their aspirations, and of AdHom, a medical charity based in Glasgow. He has also worked as honorary lecturer in Public Health at the University of Glasgow.  In his spare time he says he can play the flute and the uilleann pipes.  His children say he can’t.  In fair weather, he is an enthusiastic but poor amateur astronomer and likes to cycle whenever he can.

Dr David Reilly

Dr David Reilly FRCP, MRCGP. FFHom is currently the Scottish Government’s National Clinical Lead for Integrative Care; Consultant Physician, The Centre for Integrative Care, Glasgow Homoeopathic Hospital; Honorary Senior Lecturer, Glasgow University; Visiting Professor of Medicine, University of Maryland; faculty member at Harvard Medical School, USA; Director AdHominem Charity. 

I became a doctor to combine my head and my heart in helping people.   En route to my training as a physician and GP I evaluated aspects of complementary medicine (including RCTs of homoeopathy) and mind-body medicine. I’ve wondered about better ways of approaching medicine and human caring that emphasise the innate healing capacity in people, the factors that modify the healing response, and their interaction in the therapeutic encounter and relationship – ideas adopted as the core of The Fifth Wave document which explored future Public Health in Scotland

I am a clinician, teacher and researcher. Currently I am exploring how knowledge from the study of healing process and wellness enhancement might be scaled up: eg: in one-to-one relationships; in group work - like The WEL programme; in integrative models of care; in healing environments; and cultural and national development.

I am now old enough to have made major mistakes and young enough to learn from them. Fortunately, I am not as old as I used to be, and am even younger since my daughter Karina Maia was born in 2005.

Dr Gerry McCartney

Gerry McCartney is a Specialist Registrar in Public Health with NHS Greater Glasgow & Clyde and a General Practitioner (GP).  Gerry is interested in the social, economic, environmental and political influences on health and health inequalities.  He has published a number of articles about emerging public health and broader social challenges, such as peak oil, climate change and the unsustainability of our present economic system.

Gregor Henderson

Gregor Henderson works as a consultant and advisor to a number of Government Departments, both in the UK and overseas, working with public sector, not for profit, community based and private sector agencies on mental health and wellbeing. One of Gregor's current roles is leading a programme of work on Well-Being and Population Mental Health for the National Mental Health Development Unit, based in London. The Unit works in support of the implementation of national mental health policy in England (www.nmhdu.org.uk).

From 2003 - 2008 Gregor was the first Director of Scotland’s innovative and internationally acclaimed National Programme for Improving Mental Health and Wellbeing (www.wellscotland.info). Prior to that Gregor was the founding Director of the Scottish Development Centre for Mental Health and a Senior Fellow at the Institute of Psychiatry, King's College, London.

Gregor is also an adviser to Mental Health Europe, Chair of Young Scotland in Mind and an Adviser to ThePlace2Be, a national UK children's school based mental health charity.

Gregor is interested in combining policy, research, evidence, practice and people’s lived experiences to transforming the way people, families, communities and societies think and act about mental health.

Dr Margaret Hannah

Margaret Hannah has been working in Fife, Scotland for 14 years, most recently as Deputy Director of Public Health.  Her main areas of responsibility are in health protection and service re-design.  She has been interested in health inequalities ever since she learnt about them as a medical student.  The more she studied them, the more convinced she was that she should go into public health!

Margaret was part of the Healthy Public Policy Network from its inception.  The network has published The Possible Scot and a number of subsequent reports, including ‘The Fifth Wave: Searching for Health in Scotland’.  Her links with the International Futures Forum (IFF) have shaped her thinking in recent years and she now works as a member of IFF to promote the Fifth Wave.  This work includes the development of Kitbag, a set of resources to help people grow psychologically.  She is also using Three Horizons thinking to inform strategic conversations in the NHS, and using the World Model to expand people’s understanding of resilience in the face of radical change and uncertainty.