Jean Golding - Biography#

Jean Golding obtained her first degree (Honours Mathematics) at the University of Oxford in 1961. She was involved in child caring until 1966 when she took on some research involving analysing the 1958 British Perinatal Mortality Study. Thereafter she obtained research posts at University College London’s Department of Human Genetics (1968-71) and the Unit of Clinical Epidemiology at Oxford University (1972-1979) and was awarded PhD and DSc degrees. Throughout this time she was involved in the analysis of large datasets, exploring the associations between features of the environment and health.

In 1980 she moved to Bristol University and benefited from the multidisciplinary approach, combining obstetrics, paediatrics, psychology, physiology and histopathology. She was approached for advice on the design and implementation of national birth surveys in Greece and in Jamaica. The results in Jamaica, were used to reform the health services resulting in a drop in maternal and perinatal deaths.

In 1985 she started planning the Avon Longitudinal Study of Parents and Children (ALSPAC), which she directed until 2006. Uniquely for the time: it started in pregnancy rather than at birth, included fathers, had its own ethical governance, and collected multiple features of information on different aspects of the environment as well as genetics. The study has been central to the design of other longitudinal studies including in Norway (MoBA), Holland (Generation R) and South Africa (From Birth to Twenty).

Since ‘retirement’ she has continued to obtain grants and continue research in three different domains: (a) non-genetic inheritance; (b) psychological factors associated with health and suboptimal development; (c) neurotoxicology (especially involving features of the diet and medication). She has 633 publications, over 500 of which are original articles in peer-reviewed journals, with an IoS H-index of 85. She has been an advisor to WHO, NIH and SAPEA among many others. She has been the PI on over 300 grants, the most recent being of US$11million for a 5-year programme.