Rich Mitchell

After a degree and PhD in geography at the University of Southampton Rich moved to London for post-doc work and training in public health and epidemiology. Following a series of jobs, he joined the University of Glasgow in 2007, eventually leading the Public Health group. In 2010, with colleagues in Edinburgh, Rich co-founded the Centre for Research on Environment, Society and Health (CRESH). In 2017 he joined the Social and Public Health Sciences Unit to lead the Places and Health programme.

In his early career Rich focused on monitoring and exploring social and geographical differences in health. Over time however, he became more interested in how health can be protected than in what damages it, and in how social and geographical gaps in health could be addressed. He subsequently developed an extensive programme of research on the benefits of urban green spaces for health and is author and co-author of multiple key studies in this field. Rich continues to develop research on how change in the state, management and/or use of natural and other neighbourhood environments can positively affect population health, and in the methodologies required to know about, measure and evaluate such change including simulation studies.