
Professor Angeliki Papadaki
BSc(Thess.), MSc(MedSci) University of Glasgow, PhD(Glas.)
Expertise
Expert in public health nutrition, food support and adult social care, with a focus on Meals on Wheels, independent living, healthy ageing, and Mediterranean and traditional dietary patterns.
Current positions
Professor of Public Health Nutrition
School for Policy Studies
Contact
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Biography
Her interdisciplinary research spans public health nutrition, adult social care and gerontology. She leads a nationally recognised programme examining food support for adults with care and support needs, with a particular focus on Meals on Wheels, independent living and healthy ageing. Her research addresses service experiences and outcomes, access and referral, inequalities in provision and unmet need, and the future development of food support within adult social care.
Angeliki is founder and academic lead of Meals on Wheels UK, the first UK-wide evidence, information and service-mapping platform for Meals on Wheels. Her research has informed local service decisions and national policy discussions and has developed collaborations with providers, commissioners, policymakers, people with lived experience and researchers in the UK and internationally.
Angeliki also has an established international research profile in Mediterranean and other traditional dietary patterns, encompassing dietary behaviour, chronic disease and sustainability. Her collaborations include Harvard Medical School and the University of Navarra, and her research contributed to the Bristol Eating Better Award and Bristol achieving Gold Sustainable Food City status.
Angeliki has held major academic leadership roles, including Faculty Postgraduate Research Director and Academic Lead for Bristol within the South West Doctoral Training Partnership. She is Deputy Editor of the British Journal of Nutrition and has supervised eight PhD students to completion.
Research interests
Angeliki's research focuses on the role of food and nutrition in supporting health, independent living and healthy ageing, with particular expertise in food support within adult social care and in traditional dietary patterns. Her work spans public health nutrition, social care and gerontology, with a strong emphasis on translating research into policy and practice.
A major strand of her research examines food support for adults with care and support needs, using Meals on Wheels as an important lens through which to understand how food provision can support nutrition, wellbeing, social connection and independence. She leads an interdisciplinary programme investigating service provision, access, experiences and outcomes, inequalities in provision and unmet need, and how food support services can be strengthened and developed for the future. Her research combines qualitative and quantitative methods, evidence synthesis, co-production, intervention development and knowledge mobilisation.
Angeliki established Meals on Wheels UK, a national evidence, information and service-mapping platform designed to improve public access to services and connect research with providers, commissioners, policymakers and people with lived experience. Her research has informed local service decisions and national policy discussions and is increasingly developing international collaborations around food support and Meals on Wheels.
Her second major research area concerns Mediterranean and other traditional dietary patterns. Her work examines their definition and measurement, determinants of adherence, health and sustainability implications, and the development and evaluation of interventions to support dietary behaviour change. This research includes international collaborations and work on Mediterranean, Mexican, Chinese and African dietary patterns.
Projects and supervisions
Research projects
Meals On Wheels UK: Exploring the development of a sustainable social venture to support service providers
Principal Investigator
Description
ESRC SHAPE Catalyst award (ARC Accelerate)Managing organisational unit
School for Policy StudiesDates
01/10/2025 to 14/05/2026
Scaling Meals on Wheels UK: Exploring commercialisation to meet social care needs
Principal Investigator
Description
This Enterprise Fellowship will build on the successful output of a recent ESRC IAA award - the Meals on Wheels UK website, a state-of-the-art resource featuring a unique database and…Managing organisational unit
School for Policy StudiesDates
01/10/2025 to 31/07/2026
Why Weight Pledge for creating healthier places together: Evaluating a compassionate, whole systems approach to creating healthy weight environments in Bristol, North Somerset and South Gloucestershire (BNSSG)
Principal Investigator
Managing organisational unit
School for Policy StudiesDates
01/06/2025 to 31/03/2027
Exploring the role of Meals on Wheels in social care: a mixed-method study of service provision, use, and operation
Principal Investigator
Managing organisational unit
School for Policy StudiesDates
01/02/2025 to 31/08/2027
Mapping Meals on Wheels provision: Developing and testing an interactive map to raise awareness of services
Principal Investigator
Description
The aim of this project is to develop an interactive map of Meals on Wheels providers in the UK, which can be used to raise awareness of services. The objective…Managing organisational unit
School for Policy StudiesDates
01/05/2024 to 31/10/2024
Thesis supervisions
The Role of the Mediterranean Diet in Breast Cancer Survivorship
Supervisors
Exploring the definition of the traditional Chinese diet and its associations with health outcomes and environmental sustainability
Supervisors
Individual, social and environmental determinants of sugar-sweetened beverages intake in Mexico
Supervisors
Biocultural perspectives on the links between perceived economic insecurity, chronic stress, and obesity among food-insecure women in Minatitlán (Mexico)
Supervisors
Defining the traditional Mexican diet and evaluating its role in non-communicable disease outcomes
Supervisors
Social Determinants of Obesity-Related Behaviours (Diet, Physical Activity, and Sedentary Behaviours) among the Chilean Population
Supervisors
Sleep and diet in people with Type 2 Diabetes
Supervisors
Publications
Selected publications
01/02/2024Accessing Meals on Wheels: a qualitative study exploring the experiences of service users and people who refer them to the service
Health Expectations
‘The service, I could not do without it…’: A qualitative study exploring the significance of Meals on Wheels among service users and people who refer them to the service
Health and Social Care in the Community
The effect of the Mediterranean diet on metabolic health: A systematic review and meta-analysis of controlled trials in adults
Nutrients
Recent publications
12/05/2026From a Lockdown Question to National Insight: Angeliki Papadaki’s Enterprise Journey with Meals on Wheels UK
Meals on Wheels delivers better outcomes for recipients and carers
Meals on Wheels Referral Checklist
NIHR20: Inspiring researchers - Angeliki Papadaki
Association between the traditional Chinese diet, non-communicable diseases and all-cause mortality: a longitudinal study based on China Health and Nutrition Survey (CHNS)
European Journal of Nutrition
Teaching
At Bristol, Angeliki convenes Nutrition, Disease and Public Health, a core unit on the MSc Nutrition, Physical Activity and Public Health, and contributes to teaching across postgraduate programmes. She has extensive experience of supervising undergraduate, Master's and doctoral research and has supervised eight PhD students to completion.
Angeliki is committed to research-led and interactive teaching and has introduced approaches including flipped learning, scientific debates and collaborative problem-solving to support critical thinking, independent learning and the application of evidence to real-world public health challenges.



