Announcing the appointment of Professor Arild Bjørndal to Associate Director

CEI is delighted to announce the appointment of Arild Bjørndal MD, PhD, to the position of Associate Director in the UK and Europe.

Arild is a Norwegian public health physician who brings a wealth of experience in the promotion of evidence-based and user-centered practice in health and welfare services and in public policymaking. He has a particular interest in early childhood development and well-being; a vitally important field given its pivotal role in enabling humanity to flourish.

Arild has become increasingly focused on the importance of high-quality support for all health and mental health services that engage children and young people throughout his career. He believes societal efforts must focus on ensuring that all local communities implement a set of effective health-promoting and preventive measures to provide the best possible conditions for growing up.

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.

Arild's 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.