Afroditi Stathi

Afroditi Stathi is a Professor of Physical Activity and Community Health at the University of Birmingham, UK. Professor Stathi is an expert in the field of active ageing and public health research, focussing on the development of scalable health behaviour interventions and the co-production of interventions that can help communities to become more activity friendly.

Afroditi has secured major grants from all major UK funding agencies and the European Commission with a particular success in attracting funding by the NIHR and has published her research in world leading journals. She has led large, multidisciplinary randomised controlled trials including the successful Retirement in Action study which proved the effectiveness and cost-effectiveness of a group exercise and behavioural maintenance programme for older people with mobility limitations. This is now implemented in several regions in England and the island of Guernsey with plans for national roll-out.

Afroditi has played a key role in shaping policy, including contributing to the UK Chief Medical Officers’ Physical Activity Guidelines. Currently, she leads the Health Inequalities theme within the Public Health Research for Health Consortium, funded by the NIHR School for Public Health, and the Community Health theme at the Centre for Urban Wellbeing at the University of Birmingham. She is also part of a multidisciplinary team driving the Healthy Low-carbon Transport Hub, which explores how low-carbon transport can be leveraged to maximise health benefits.