
Dr Angela Raffle
B.Sc., M.B., Ch.B.(Birm.), F.F.P.H.M.
Current positions
Honorary Senior Lecturer in Social and Community Medicine
Bristol Medical School (PHS)
Contact
Press and media
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Research interests
Following clinical work in England and Africa, Angela Raffle trained in Public Health and has practised as a Consultant in Public Health in Bristol since 1990. During this time she has played a key role in researching the full consequences of screening. Her documentation of the overdiagnosis harms from cervical screening, for which she was awarded the Skrabanek Prize, made international headlines in 1995 and helped shift national policy for the better. She helped pioneer the delivery of screening as high quality systematic programmes and she challenged the ethics of one-sided information, aimed at high uptake rather than informed choice. With Sir Muir Gray she is author of the leading international textbook on screening, the second edition published in June 2019. She worked as a Consultant to the UK National Screening Programmes since their inception in 1996, playing a role in quality assurance, policy making, service evaluation and the management of screening incidents, as well as developing and delivering national training for public health practitioners. From 1995 she was cancer programmes Public Health lead for Avon Somerset and Wiltshire, helping introduce standard setting and quality assurance for cancer services generally. She was instrumental in setting up, and chairing, the Avon Somerset and Wiltshire Cancer Drug Forum, a forerunner to NICE, which involved patients and clinicians and ensured a systematic approach to introduction of new drugs and technologies. Since 2009 she has turned her attention to ecological public health issues, commissioning the Who Feeds Bristol report, helping create the Good Food Plan for Bristol and being part of the team that enabled Bristol to become the second English City to achieve Silver, and subsequently Gold, in the Sustainable Food Cities Awards. In 2022 she was awarded Honorary Doctorate of Science by the University of the West of England. She also helped to found The Community Farm in Chew Valley, a community owned organic farm welcoming thousands of people onto the land every year, for learning, recreation, and wellbeing.
Publications
Recent publications
09/04/2021Mapping the outcomes of covid-19 testing reveals the best opportunities for system improvement
BMJ Opinion
Mass screening for asymptomatic SARS-CoV-2 infection
BMJ
Authors' response to comments on “The 1960s cervical screening incident at National Women's Hospital, Auckland, New Zealand: insights for screening research, policy making, and practice”
Journal of Clinical Epidemiology
The value of university screening is unknown
BMJ
Covid-19 mass testing programmes
BMJ