Andres Roman-Urrestarazu

Andres holds the Gillings Fellow in Autism Research and Global Public Health at Autism Research Centre in the University of Cambridge and is Assistant Professor at Maastricht University in the Department of International Health. He is also a Clinical Research Associate at the Cambridge Institute of Public Health and holds an Honorary Contract with Public Health England.

Andres has held appointments as Director of Studies in Psychology and Behavioural Science (PBS) in Trinity Hall, Cambridge and supervises a number of PhD, MPhil, and undergraduate students. He is also affiliated to both the Faculty of Public Health and the Royal Society for Public Health participating in the Mental Health Special Interest Groups. Prior to joining the Cambridge Institute of Public Health he was Research Officer in Health Economics and Health Policy at the London School of Economics and Political Science and Technical Lead at the Centre for Health Technology Assessment in the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence - NICE. His combined expertise in mental health and substance abuse research lies in the field of drug policy and its links to public health. In this area he leads a research programme studying the association between austerity, macroeconomic indicators, and substance misuse. He holds degrees in Clinical Medicine and Psychiatry (MD, University of Santiago de Chile; PhD Psychiatry, University of Cambridge) and Health Economics and International Health Policy (MSc, London School of Economics, LSE). His most recent book, discusses different global policy options for NPS having collaborated for this work with different international organisations such as the European Commission, UNODC, DEA, WADA, LSE Ideas, and various leading academics in the field of drug policy.

Andres as Gillings Fellow is focused on public health research addressing the complex ethical, economic, and social issues needed for the successful translation of substance abuse research findings into clinical, individual, or governmental policy and practice. Andres research interests also span neuro-developmental conditions such as autism and its links to mental health, public health and social and educational policy. As Gillings Fellow he is also conducting research projects into the effects of the 2007 crisis in substance abuse, the opioid epidemic, NPS consumption in the USA, drug policy reform and also the regional prevalence estimates for ASC in England and its links to systemising and STEM; a project focused on the early detection of ASC in a LMIC setting such as Chile; a household expenditure survey for people with ASC based in China and a large scale project that is mapping autism policy in all 28 Member States of the EU.