GRAHAM WATT

Norie Miller Professor of General Practice
MD, BMedBiol, MBChB, FRCGP, FFPH, FRCP, FMedSci
E-mail Graham.Watt@glasgow.ac.uk
Tel 0141 330 8345

Biography

Graham Watt comes from Aberdeen where he qualified in 1976. He is the Norie Miller Professor of General Practice and was also head of the Department/Section of General Practice and Primary Care from 1994 to January 2009.

After hospital posts in Shetland, Leicester, Aberdeen and Nottingham, he sought to combine training in epidemiology and general practice, moving to work with Dr Julian Tudor Hart at Glyncorrwg in South Wales, where they carried out a challenging series of community studies on the effect of dietary salt intake on blood pressure.

Moving to the community paediatrics scheme in Edinburgh, he then completed vocational training at Townhead Health Centre in Glasgow. During the next decade, he established the Glasgow WHO MONICA Project Centre, gained accreditation in public health medicine and worked first as a research manager for health services research in the Scottish Chief Scientist Office and then as a senior lecturer in public health at Glasgow University.

Since 1994 he has been Professor of General Practice at University of Glasgow – combining and requiring experience in medical education, clinical medicine, epidemiology, research management and public health advocacy. He has a long term research interest in health and disease in families which he began at Glyncorrwg and has pursued via the Ladywell Blood Pressure Study in Edinburgh and the MIDSPAN Family Study in the west of Scotland. He also has interests in inequalities in health and health care and in supporting the next generation of academic general practitioners and primary care researchers.

He is currently coordinating the activities of the Deep End Project, comprising a series of meetings with general practitioners working in the 100 most deprived practices in Scotland, with support from the Scottish Government, RCGP Scotland and Glasgow Centre for Population Health.

Esteem factors

• Elected Chair, Heads of Departments Group, UK University Departments of General Practice and Primary Care (2001-2004)
• Member of Council, UK Academy of Medical Sciences, (2005-2006)
• Chair of Fellowship Panel for Public Health, Primary Care, Epidemiology, Statistics and Psychiatry, UK Academy of Medical Sciences (2004-2006)
• Member, Academy of Medical Sciences Working Group on Uses of Personal Information in Medical Research (2005-2006)
• Member, Department of Health Clinical Record Development Board, Secondary Uses Working Group (2006-2007)
• Member of Sub-Panel UO6, Epidemiology and Public Health, 2008 Universities Research Assessment Exercise.
• Academic Representative, Scottish Council of the Royal College of General Practitioners (2003 onwards).
• Trustee and Chair of Programme Advisory Panel, Medical Aid for Palestinians, London (2006 onwards)
• Lead for Senior Academic General Practitioners in Scotland in negotiations with SEHD and SACDA concerning eligibility and inclusion in the new consultant contract and consultant distinction award schemes.

Reports

• Watt G. Blue Sky Research for Primary Care, 2011. http://www.sapc.ac.uk/
• Watt G. Connecting with General Practice to Improve Public Health. Findings of the Primary Care Observatory and Deep End Projects. Glasgow Centre for Population Health, 2011 http://www.gcph.co.uk
• Watt G. The Significance of Respiratiory Impairment for Public Health in Scotland. A symposium held at the University of Glasgow, 17th February 2011. Glasgow Centre for Population Health, 2011. http://www.gcph.co.uk
• 12 articles from General Practitioners at the Deep End, British Journal of General Practice, January to December, 2011. http://www.gla.ac.uk/departments/generalpracticeprimarycare/deepend

Subject areas in which PhD supervision can be offered

• Inequalities in health and health care
• Health and disease in families
• Development of primary health care

Publications
Recent grants and current projects
PI profile
Connections with Palestine