Professor Andrew McAuley
Professor in Public Health
School of Health and Life Sciences
Professor Andrew McAuley has worked locally and nationally in the NHS since 2001, specifically in the addictions field since 2005. He is currently Consultant Healthcare Scientist (Epidemiology) within the Blood Borne Virus and Sexually Transmitted Infections team at NHS Public Health Scotland where he has a lead role for projects involving people who inject drugs.
At GCU, Andrew held an honorary research position with the Substance Use Research team between 2014 and 2017; before taking up a Senior Research Fellow post within the Blood Borne Virus research team in early 2017, following the completion of his PhD. He was promoted to Reader in 2020 and to Professor of Public Health in June 2023.
Andrew is an experienced mixed methods Researcher with particular expertise in injecting drug use and related harms. He has led many research projects including the Needle Exchange Surveillance Initiative (NESI), a bio-behavioural survey of people who inject drugs in Scotland, and the evaluation of Scotland’s first Heroin-Assisted Treatment service in Glasgow. He is currently leading a broad collaborative programme of work evaluating the impact of public health interventions on substance use in Scotland (‘EPHeSUS’). In 2018 he was awarded the Fred Yates Prize for Researcher of the Year by the Society for the Study of Addiction.
Andrew has a strong track record in public health research, leading and contributing to many high-quality peer-reviewed journal articles. He has also been commissioned to work on scientific reports for leading institutions including the World Health Organisation (WHO) and the European Monitoring Centre for Drugs and Drug Addiction (EMCDDA). He is currently Co-chair of the Scottish Government Sexual Health and Blood Borne Virus Framework Prevention Leads Network and a member of the Oversight Group for the Scottish Government’s National Mission on Drugs. He is a former member of the Scottish Government Partnership for Action on Drugs (PADS) Harm Reduction Group, National Naloxone Advisory Group, and the National Forum on Drug-Related Deaths.