Bobbie Jacobson OBE FFPH MBBS BSc has spent four decades as a public health doctor and activist inside the NHS, academe & beyond. Her primary passion has been the prevention of ill-health and closing the health divide. She created an international movement on smoking prevention for women as a junior doctor in the 1980s. She was Director of Public Health in London’s East End in the 1990s; and Director of the London Health Observatory from 2001 to 2013. She lives with her husband and has two children and one grandchild. She has written widely in the scientific and popular media, including two best-selling books on prevention. She was awarded an OBE for services to public health in 2005. Her latest book: Against the Flow. Pandemic lessons from inside the wider battles for prevention, was published in March 2024.