BIOGRAPHY
Sir Mansel Aylward is a leading University expert, specializing in psychosocial, social, economic and cultural factors that influence people’s health and wellbeing. He is a physician, with a specialty in rheumatology, rehabilitation, therapeutics and clinical pharmacology. He played a key role in the development of the UK's medical assessment for incapacity (the All Work Test), the Personal Capability Assessment and the “Pathways to Work” initiative for Vocational Rehabilitation. For this he was made a Companion of the Bath, an order of knighthood in the Queen's Jubilee Birthday Honours List 2002.
Before being appointed in June 2009 as Chair of Public Health Wales, Professor Sir Mansel was chair of the Wales Centre for Health. From 1996 to April 2005 he was Chief Medical Adviser, Medical Director and Chief Scientist to the United Kingdom's Department for Work and Pensions. He was also Chief Medical Adviser and Head of Profession at the Veterans' Agency, Ministry of Defence. Currently, he is also Director of the Centre for Psychosocial and Disability Research at Cardiff University, Wales. The Centre is the first of its kind to offer a unique opportunity to extend knowledge and understanding of the psychosocial influence on health, illness and disease, recovery and rehabilitation.
His research spans several areas, including the factors which pose obstacles to recovery in Wales, public beliefs about illness and disability and the relations between work and health. Many of the research projects, in Wales and elsewhere, aim to develop practical public health interventions.
In 2001 he was appointed as The Royal Society of Medicine's Academic Sub Dean for Wales. From 1974 to 1984 he was chairman and Managing Director of Simbec Research Ltd., UK, and President of Simbec Inc., New Jersey, USA.