Biography
Dr Gemma Taylor is a Senior Lecturer in Public Health at the University of Bristol and a Reader at the University of Bath. Her work has transformed understanding of the relationship between smoking and mental health and pioneered smoking cessation treatments for people with depression and anxiety. She was the first to demonstrate, through landmark publications in BMJ and the Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews, that quitting smoking improves mental health to a degree comparable with taking antidepressants. These findings have reshaped clinical practice and policy – being cited over 1,500 times and informing 172 guidelines, including those by the World Health Organization.
Dr Taylor leads high-impact, cross-sector collaborations across academia, the NHS, digital health providers, and industry. Her ESCAPE trials, which integrate smoking cessation into NHS Talking Therapies, have produced scalable, co-produced interventions – both face-to-face and digital – now progressing toward national rollout. She has received multiple awards, including ‘Best Paper’ and ‘Most Cited’ honours from BMJ, Addiction, and the British Journal of Clinical Psychology, as well as awards and prizes from the Society for the Study of Addiction and both UK and international behavioural medicine societies.
Dr Taylor combines research leadership with commercial insight. In the pharmaceutical sector, she managed scientific quality and revenue generation at a leading global consultancy, developing strong business acumen in strategic planning, innovation, and stakeholder engagement.
A committed mentor and university award winner for excellence in doctoral supervision, she also advises Action on Smoking and Health (ASH), research funders, and NHS and government bodies. Her research continues to advance equitable, scalable public health innovation.
Declaration of interests
Gemma is employed as a Senior Lecturer by the University of Bristol and a Reader at the University of Bath. She was employed by Health Economics and Outcomes Research (HEOR) between 2022 and 2024.
