Congratulations to Professor Mala Rao upon receiving her CBE

Mala’s career has spanned public health practice, policy, research and training, and her most impactful achievements have been in workforce development, strengthening health systems and environmental health in the UK and overseas.

Professor Mala Rao CBE is Director of the Ethnicity and Health Unit and Senior Clinical Fellow at the Department of Primary Care and Public Health, Imperial School of Public Health. Mala is also Vice Chair of WaterAid UK; Chair of WHO South East Asia Region’s Expert Group on the Environmental Determinants of Climate Change and Health; Clinical Adviser on Race Equality to the General Medical Council, and was formerly Medical Adviser to NHS England on Workforce Race Equality.

Mala said:

I feel both humbled as well as thrilled to be awarded a CBE. The news was quite overwhelming at first, but I look forward to being able to share it with family, friends and colleagues. I am especially grateful for the award because it brings publicity to the public health causes I have been deeply committed to addressing throughout my career and that I will continue to advocate for in the coming years.

Mala is a recognised champion of climate action, safe water and sanitation and gender equity and is also globally respected for her advocacy of race equality and research on the intersection between race, health and climate. Her research also investigates the impact of climate change on mental health and eco-anxiety. Mala has worked closely with the Indian, UK and other governments and academia, the World Health Organization and frontline health staff to help reform health care policies and practice, benefiting millions of disadvantaged people.

Mala was born and raised in India, and studied medicine in Delhi, where she was inspired to specialise in public health. After completing postgraduate training at London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine and North East Thames Region, she spent 17 years as an NHS consultant and later Director of Public Health. Deeply committed to addressing health inequalities, she highlighted higher infant mortality rates in young army families in the UK in the 1980s, compelling the provision of maternal social support in an era when the social determinants of health were not acknowledged. In 1997, she established England’s first evidence-based cancer network, having persuaded 120 clinicians in her health authority to work with her towards this common goal.

In 2003, she became the Head of Public Health Workforce for England, at the Department of Health, London. Her ‘Teaching Public Health Networks’ programme evolved into the UK Healthy Universities Network.

She then spent six years in India, where she served as inaugural Director of Public Health Foundation of India’s first Indian Institute of Public Health from 2008 till 2011, and led several research and development projects aimed at improving access to good quality health care for the poor.

Mala is widely published and is the recipient of several awards, including being made an Officer of the British Empire by the Queen in 2013 for services to public health in the UK and overseas.

In 2017, Mala was appointed to the Court at the Worshipful Company of Plumbers. We are tremendously lucky to have Professor Mala Rao CBE amongst our ranks, and wish her heartfelt congratulations for her being awarded Commander of the Order of the British Empire.