Neil Quinn is Professor in Social Work and Public Health and Co-Director of the University’s Centre for Health Policy. He is an international leader in social work and public health has been invited to be a Visiting Professor at New York and Yale Universities.
He has a particular expertise in health inequalities, human rights and citizenship and has a specific commitment to working with vulnerable groups, including people with mental health problems, asylum seekers and refugees and people experiencing homelessness.
Neil has led a number of important research and knowledge exchange programmes. He is Principal Investigator of the Horizon 2020 Citizenship, Recovery and Inclusive Society Partership, an ambitious 4-year international programme on mental health and social exclusion. He is also Principal Investigator on a national research and knowledge exchange programme on the right to health and participation. He is lead academic on a long-term programme with Barnardo’s on young people’s mental health. He has also recently secured two awards from the Chief Scientists Office on Covid-19: a programme on Covid-19 and mental health disparities and another on the psychosocial impact of Coronavirus social distancing on relatives of care home residents.
He is engaged in a number of key national policy roles, including the Scottish Government’s Covid-19 Mental Health Advisory Group, lead academic on Public Health Scotland’s Covid-19 Inclusion Health Group and the Scottish National Action Plan (SNAP) human rights group on health and social care. He has also been engaged in a range of high-profile international work as an advisor to the World Health Organisation on mental health rights, co-author of Public Mental Health: Global Perspectives and the UNCRC Guidelines for the Alternative Care of Children Handbook. He leads collaborations with Yale on health citizenship and New York University on social work and public health.
He is committed to working in partnership with service users and communities and has 25 years’ experience in social work, community development and public health at a local, national and international level. He has led a major community development and health programme in one of Europe’s areas of highest deprivation, chaired the national Sanctuary programme working with asylum seekers and refugees and is on the steering group of People’s Health Movement Scotland. He is also a co-founder of the Declaration health and human rights arts festival.