Alan Emond is a clinical academic paediatrician who holds the position of Emeritus Professor of Child Health at Bristol Medical School. He was director of the Centre for Child and Adolescent Health (now called the Centre for Academic Child Health) from 2003-2018. He founded this unique academic centre in 2003 as a multidisciplinary collaboration between the University of Bristol, the University of the West of England and the NHS.

Alan’s research interests are in epidemiology, clinical trials and health service evaluation. His work has had an impact on the care of children, changing approaches to the care of high risk infants, providing evidence from clinical trials for the effectiveness of interventions, improving the identification and management of common developmental disorders, promoting multidisciplinary working in the community, and leading to better use of scarce resources such as health visitors. ALSPAC has made a substantial contribution to paediatric knowledge internationally: Alan’s work has provided evidence on the impact of pregnancy exposures on child development and behaviour, on early growth faltering, developmental traits and disorders, enuresis, childhood injuries, high risk behaviours such as gambling, and resilience to adversity. His important contributions to child public health include the prevention of burns, child health screening and surveillance, immunisation and breastfeeding.

In 2019 he was awarded the James Spence medal by the Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health for his outstanding contribution to the advancement of knowledge and understanding in paediatrics and child health.

His current research project is collaborating with a multidisciplinary team on a 5 year grant using ALSPAC data: ‘Religious belief, health, and disease: a family perspective’ (PI Prof Jean Golding). Alan is collaborating on studies of religious belief as a promoter of resilience in chronic disease and mental health.