Personal profile
Research interests
Anna Gilmore is Professor of Public Health, co-Director of the Centre for 21st Century Public Health and Founder and previously Director (2007 to 2025) of the Tobacco Control Research Group at the University of Bath. She is also Adjunct Professor at the School of Medicine, Trinity College Dublin.
She is a public health physician, with an MSc (dist) and PhD in Public Health from LSHTM, is a Fellow of the Faculty of Public Health & holds an honorary clinic contract with Office of Health Improvement and Disparities. She has over 300 publications including over 200 peer reviewed publications.
Her work focuses on three main areas:
- Understanding and addressing the commercial determinants of health. This includes development of models and taxonomies for understanding the ways the commercial sector impacts on health, including its influence on science and policy, and using such knowledge to identify appropriate public health interventions.
- The evaluation of complex interventions on health. This includes evaluation of the impacts of macroeconomic change on health and of public health policies or interventions. Such work includes examination of the impact of transition from communism to a market economy on health and evaluation of the impact of smokefree public places on health.
- Developing evidence for policy and using evidence to inform policy. This includes the first work on tobacco industry pricing which has led to changes in tobacco tax in the UK and inspired similar work across other jurisdictions.
She is a global leader in research on the commercial determinants of health, particularly in relation to the tobacco industry. Her research has been internationally recognised through awards including PWHO, World No Tobacco Day Medal (2008) for ‘outstanding contribution to tobacco control’ the Public Health Advocacy Institute International Award for Outstanding use of Tobacco Industry Documents (2009), The Vice Chancellor's Research Medal (2019) and a Special Recognition Award from the WHO Director General (2021).
Early career researchers in her team have also received awards for their research including the World Conference on Tobacco or Health (WCTOH) Young Investigator Award and Public Health Science Conference Early Career Researcher Award, Peter Troughton Research Staff Prize and Ilona Kickbusch award for Excellence in Early Career Research Publication in Health Promotion.
She previously held a prestigious Health Foundation Clinician Scientist Award and led the Department of Health funded evaluation of smokefree legislation in England. The innovative methods her team developed for this project were then adapted to evaluate the impact of tobacco control mass media campaigns in work funded by the MRC. More recently her work has significantly advanced understanding of tobacco industry pricing and profitability and its implications for tobacco tax policy. This work prompted and was cited in government consultations, ultimately leading to changes in UK tobacco tax policy.
In 2012 her team launched www.TobaccoTactics.org, a ground-breaking knowledge-exchange platform now widely used by policymakers, civil servants, NGOs & the media globally. The model has been so successful, it ihas been replicated in a series of tobacco industry observatories established internationally by the FCTC Secretariat Sites have so far been set up in Brazil and Sri Lanka in which we have played a supportive role. in 2018 TCRG became the research partner in STOP, a global tobacco industry watchdog.
Gilmore works closely with intergovernmental organisations notably the WHO, World Bank and FCTC Secretariat, national and international NGOs and policy makers, frequently provides evidence to parliamentary inquiries, ministerial and inter-ministerial meetings as well as working extensively with the press (work which has lead to awards). Through these links her work has led to numerous impacts at national, European and global level.
She was senior editor and is now European editor for Tobacco Control, sits on numerous national and international expert committees including the Royal College of Physicians Tobacco Advisory Group; the International Expert Group on Article 5.3, the WHO Expert Committee convened to develop recommendations on how to address tobacco industry interference with tobacco control policy and the WHO International Expert Group on the Commercial Determinants of Health. Her profile has been published in leading media outlets in Spanish and English.
Expertise related to UN Sustainable Development Goals
In 2015, UN member states agreed to 17 global Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) to end poverty, protect the planet and ensure prosperity for all. This person’s work contributes towards the following SDG(s):
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SDG 3 Good Health and Well-being
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Collaborations and top research areas from the last five years
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Health Hub: Systems Approaches to Commercial Determinants of Health and Equity
Gilmore, A. (PI), Fichera, E. (CoI), Gillison, F. (CoI), Griffin, T. (CoI), Hunt, A. (CoI), Pearce, N. (CoI), Rutter, H. (CoI), Bates, G. (Researcher CoI), Serna Castano, A. (Researcher CoI) & Van Den Akker, A. (Researcher CoI)
1/04/24 → 31/03/28
Project: Research council
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STOP 2
Gilmore, A. (PI), Bloomfield, M. J. (CoI), Branston, R. (CoI), Gallagher, A. (CoI), Rowell, A. (CoI), Braznell, S. (Researcher), Chamberlain, P. (Researcher), Elmitwalli, S. (Researcher), Fitzpatrick, I. (Researcher), Gallagher, A. (Researcher), Gatehouse, T. (Researcher), Hiscock, R. (Researcher), Jardim, C. (Researcher), Laurence, L. (Researcher), Legg, T. (Researcher), Matthes, B. (Researcher) & Sheikh, Z. (Researcher)
1/01/23 → 31/12/26
Project: Other
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Data mapping as the first step to understanding e-cigarettes better through modelling
Gilmore, A. (PI) & Hiscock, R. (Researcher)
National Institute for Health Research
1/10/24 → 30/06/25
Project: Central government, health and local authorities
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Reducing the exceptional affordability of hand-rolling tobacco using tax escalators: a health and economic impact modelling study for England
Kai Le Chen, R., Morris, D., Angus, C., Gilmore, A., Hiscock, R., Holmes, J., Langley, T. E., Pryce, R., Wilson, L. B., Brennan, A. & Gillespie, D., 6 Jan 2026, In: Tobacco Control. 9 p.Research output: Contribution to journal › Review article › peer-review
Open Access -
20th anniversary of the WHO Framework Convention on Tobacco Control coming into force: time for a step change in ambition
Gilmore, A. B., Callard, C., Sy, D., Llorente, B. A., Bhojani, U., Egbe, C. O. & Bialous, S. A., 1 Mar 2025, In: The Lancet. 405, 10480, p. 677-681 5 p.Research output: Contribution to journal › Comment/debate › peer-review
7 Link opens in a new tab Citations (SciVal) -
Analysis of Philip Morris International’s ‘aspirational’ target for its 2025 cigarette shipments
Mehegan, J., Gallagher, A., Elmitwalli, S., Edwards, R. & Gilmore, A., 31 Mar 2025, In: BMJ Open. 0, p. 1-7 7 p., tc-2023-058511.Research output: Contribution to journal › Article › peer-review
Open Access5 Link opens in a new tab Citations (SciVal) -
Civil society organisations as key actors in tobacco control policy implementation in low- and middle-income countries: An interview-based study
Matthes, B., Ziemann, A. & Gilmore, A., 2025.Research output: Contribution to conference › Poster › peer-review
Open Access -
Constructing and contesting industry’s role in multistakeholder governance: a qualitative analysis of responses to WHO consultations
Van Den Akker, A., Sun, X., Matthes, B., Lauber, K. & Gilmore, A., 11 Nov 2025, In: Globalization and Health. 21, 1, 66.Research output: Contribution to journal › Article › peer-review
Open Access
Datasets
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Data from: A critical evaluation of the volume, relevance and quality of evidence submitted by the tobacco industry to oppose standardised packaging of tobacco products.
Hatchard, J. (Creator), Gilmore, A. (Project Member), Evans-Reeves, K. (Project Member), Fooks, G. (Project Member) & Ulucanlar, S. (Project Member), Dryad Digital Repository, 13 Mar 2014
DOI: 10.5061/dryad.7dm1p/1, http://datadryad.org/resource/doi:10.5061/dryad.7dm1p/1
Dataset
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Dataset for "Identifying misleading corporate narratives: The application of linguistic and qualitative methods to commercial determinants of health research"
Fitzpatrick, I. (Creator), Bertscher, A. (Creator), Gilmore, A. (Creator) & Cranwell, J. (Contributor), University of Bath, 24 Oct 2022
DOI: 10.15125/BATH-01117
Dataset
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Dataset for Quantifying and characterising tobacco content in the most in-demand streamed series in 10 low/middle-income Countries in 2019
Fitzpatrick, I. (Creator), Byrne, D. (Creator), Gilmore, A. (Creator), Hasan, F. (Creator) & Cranwell, J. (Creator), University of Bath, 24 Jun 2022
DOI: 10.15125/BATH-00968
Dataset
Activities
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WHO. Delivery in Action: Commercial Determinants of Health webinar,
Gilmore, A. (Speaker)
30 Apr 2024Activity: Academic conferences and events (excluding conference publications) › Keynote presentation or prestigious invited talk
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European Programme of work
Gilmore, A. (No value)
28 Feb 2022Activity: Knowledge Exchange (Industry, Government, NGOs) › Stakeholder engagement, presentation
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The Intersectoral Prevention Laboratory
Gilmore, A. (Speaker)
2 May 2024Activity: Academic conferences and events (excluding conference publications) › Keynote presentation or prestigious invited talk
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European Programme of work, WHO Consultation. Developing the second European Programme of Work
Gilmore, A. (No value)
31 Jan 2025Activity: Knowledge Exchange (Industry, Government, NGOs) › Stakeholder engagement, presentation
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JAPreventNCD project Webinar, Norwegian Institute of Public Health
Gilmore, A. (Speaker)
29 Oct 2024Activity: Academic conferences and events (excluding conference publications) › Conference or panel chair