Dr Kyla Thomas

Dr Kyla Thomas is an Associate Professor in Public Health Medicine at the University of Bristol, Clinical Director of the NIHR Clinical Research Network West of England, and Honorary Consultant in Public Health at South Gloucestershire Council and the Office for Health Improvement and Disparities. She graduated with MBBS (Distinction) from the University of the West Indies in 2003 before obtaining an MSc by Research in Clinical Epidemiology and MSc Global Health Science (Distinction) from Oxford University on a Commonwealth Caribbean Rhodes scholarship. Dr Thomas was awarded a PhD with Commendation from the University of Bristol in 2014.

Dr Thomas’ main research interests include using pharmacoepidemiological methods to investigate the effectiveness and safety of smoking cessation medicines and e-cigarettes. Her current NIHR Advanced/ Postdoctoral fellowship is focused on developing a primary care-based intervention to prevent and reduce opioid painkiller dependence in patients with chronic non-cancer pain. Her research has informed the risk–benefit analysis of smoking cessation medicines by regulators such as the Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency and informed NICE public health guidance on smoking cessation. She was the 2019 joint winner of the SSA’s Fred Yates prize for researcher of the year; her research was described as “topical, difficult and neglected due to its complexity”.

Dr Thomas has been a senior editor for Addiction journal since March 2020; prior to that she was Assistant Editor and Associated Editor (2016–2020). She is passionate about supporting early career researchers and currently supports with formal mentoring programmes and informal mentoring. She is currently a member of the NIHR Academy and the NIHR Doctoral panel.