Director of Policy, Research and Development, Public Health Wales, UNITED KINGDOM

Professor Mark Bellis is the Director of Policy and International Health for Public Health Wales and Professor of Public Health at Bangor University. Mark is the Head of the World Health Organization (WHO) Collaborating Centre on Investment for Health and Well-being and WHO UK Focal Point for Violence and Injury Prevention. 

Previously, Mark has been a Director of Public Health in England and Head of the Centre for Public Health in Liverpool John Moores University; at the time one of the largest academic public health research units in the UK. He has undertaken substantive work in the fields of violence prevention, alcohol, drugs and sexual health. As well as international work with WHO, Professor Bellis has also worked as an advisor to organisations including the United Nations Development Programme, United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime and United Nations International Children's Emergency Fund. He has published around 200 academic papers and more than 250 applied public health reports and books. The current pandemic has resulted in much of Mark’s time being taken up leading parts of the national response to COVID-19 by Public Health Wales. However, he continues to head an on-going research programme examining Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACEs) and their impact on health and behaviour across the life course.