Professor Arild Bjørndal is a Norwegian public health physician experienced in the promotion of evidence-based and user-centered practice in health and welfare services and public policymaking.
Over the last three decades Arild has worked with the Cochrane Collaboration and the Campbell Collaboration in several different roles, including as co-chair of the Campbell Collaboration´s steering-group from 2007–2014. Between 2010 and 2021 he was CEO at the Centre for Child Mental Health in Oslo (RBUP), serving the south-east of Norway. He served as Professor of Public Health at the Faculty of Medicine, University of Oslo from 1996–2021, and in 2015–16 was a visiting scholar at Harvard University.
Between 2004–2010 he was Medical Director at the National Knowledge Center for the Health Services which he co-founded (now part of the National Institute of Public Health), where he was also responsible for setting up the Norway National Electronic Library for Health. From 2002–2004 he was Director of the Knowledge Management Division at the Directorate for Health and Social Affairs, and in the 1990s, Arild was Head of Health Services Research at the National Institute of Public Health, later leading the Department of Community Medicine at the same institute.
Arilds research interests include health services research, social medicine, quality improvement in health and social services, meditation-based interventions, and child mental health. He is the author of several medical textbooks and has published over 200 scientific articles.