Blair Smith

Personal profile

Biography

Holding a Chair in Population Health Science, Blair is an academic general practitioner, currently also practising clinically as a Consultant in Pain Medicine, NHS Tayside. He is also Clinical Co-director of Tayside Clinical Trials Unit. Graduating at the Universities of Glasgow (MBChB, 1987) and Aberdeen (MEd Distinction 1998; MD 2000), he held an NHS Primary Care Career Scientist Award (2000 to 2005) and was Professor of Primary Care Medicine at the University of Aberdeen until 2011.

His research on chronic pain and neuropathic pain has been published widely, specifically studying its epidemiology, primary care management and self-management. He is a Chief Investigator on Generation Scotland, a major programme for studying genetics and health, with over 30,000 volunteer participants. He is now actively exploring the opportunities that this and other collaborations bring to researching the biological mechanisms of chronic pain, from the laboratory to the community. He has established the Chronic Pain Research Group at the University of Dundee, based in the Division of Population Health and Genomics.

He is Past Chair of the International Association for the Study of Pain Neuropathic Pain Special Interest Group (NeuPSIG), and Co-chair of their Global Alliance of Pain Patient Advocates. He was formerly Treasurer of the Society for Academic Primary Care, and sat on the Editorial Board of the British Journal of General Practice, both from 1997 to 2007. He chaired the NHS Scotland / SGHD Chronic Pain Steering Group until June 2011, and established its Research Subgroup and the Scottish Pain Research Community (SPaRC). He was appointed to his current post in August 2011.

Blair was appointed on 1 May 2014 to the post of Lead Clinician for Chronic Pain working with the Scottish Government, and is Specialty Adviser to the Chief Medical Officer. He aims to facilitate improvement in the management of pain, in an evidence-based yet practical way.

In 2017, Blair received the award for Best Postgraduate Supervisor from the Dundee University Students' Association. In 2018, he was awarded the British Pain Society Medal and Annual Lecture, for "outstanding contribution to the field of pain".

Education/Academic qualification

London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine

Award Date: 1 Jun 2001

Doctor of Medicine, University of Aberdeen

Award Date: 1 Jan 2000

Master of Education, University of Aberdeen

Award Date: 1 Jan 1998

Bachelor of Medicine and Bachelor of Surgery, University of Glasgow

Award Date: 1 Jan 1987

External positions

Specialty Adviser to Chief Medical Officer, Scottish Government

1 Sep 2016 → …

National Lead Clinician for Chronic Pain, Scottish Government

1 Apr 2014 → …

Consultant in Pain Medicine, NHS Tayside

1 Apr 2013 → …

Surgeon Lieutenant Commander

2000 → 2005

Keywords

R Medicine (General)
Chronic pain
Primary Care Medicine
RA0421 Public health. Hygiene. Preventive Medicine
Epidemiology
Genetic epidemiology

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Projects

2 Not started
2 Active
11 Finished

Understanding Barriers to Increasing Physical Acitivity in Chronic Pain: An Exploratory Study to Develop the SUStainable Self Effective Exercise Development (SUSSED) Intervention (Health Improvement, Protection and Services Research Committee) (Joint with Queen's University Belfast, NHS Fife and Glasgow Caledonian University)

Colvin, L. & Smith, B.

1/10/19 → 30/09/20

Project: Research

SHARE (Joint with University of Edinburgh)

Belch, J., George, J., Palmer, C., Smith, B. & Sullivan, F.

Chief Scientist Office

1/01/13 → 31/03/21

Project: Research

Benzodiazepine and Opioid Prescribing and Healthcare Use in Scotland

Smith, B.

Project: Research

Sponsorship of 8th Annual SPaRC Meeting

Smith, B.

Project: Research

The Global Challenge to Alleviate Persistent Pain (Global Challenges Research Fund)

Colvin, L., Hales, T. & Smith, B.

Scottish Funding Council

1/09/18 → 28/02/19

Project: Research

Research Output

13799 Citations
55 h-Index
206 Article
17 Review article
13 Letter
12 Comment/debate
22 More

A genome-wide association study finds genetic variants associated with neck or shoulder pain in UK Biobank

Meng, W., Chan, B. W., Harris, C., Freidin, M. B., Hebert, H., Adams, M. J., Campbell, A., Hayward, C., Zheng, H., Zhang, X., Colvin, L., Hales, T., Palmer, C., Williams, F. M. K., McIntosh, A. M. & Smith, B. H., 15 Apr 2020, In : Human Molecular Genetics. 29, 8, p. 1396-1404 9 p.

Research output: Contribution to journal › Article

Open Access

File

4 Downloads (Pure)

Author Correction: Genome-wide association study of knee pain identifies associations with GDF5 and COL27A1 in UK Biobank

Meng, W., Adams, M. J., Palmer, C. N. A., 23andMe Research Team, Shi, J., Auton, A., Ryan, K. A., Jordan, J. M., Mitchell, B. D., Jackson, R. D., Yau, M. S., McIntosh, A. M. & Smith, B. H., 26 Mar 2020, In : Communications Biology. 3, 1, 1 p., 149.

Research output: Contribution to journal › Article

Open Access

File

15 Downloads (Pure)

Genetic correlations between pain phenotypes and depression and neuroticism

Meng, W., Adams, M. J., Reel, P., Rajendrakumar, A., Huang, Y., Deary, I. J., Palmer, C. N. A., McIntosh, A. M. & Smith, B. H., Mar 2020, In : European Journal of Human Genetics. 28, p. 358-366 9 p.

Research output: Contribution to journal › Article

Open Access

File

2 Citations (Scopus)

66 Downloads (Pure)

Genome-wide association meta-analyses combining multiple risk phenotypes provide insights into the genetic architecture of cutaneous melanoma susceptibility

GenoMEL Consortium, Q-MEGA and QTWIN Investigators, ATHENS Melanoma Study Group, 23andMe, The SDH Study Group, IBD Investigators, Essen-Heidelberg Investigators, AMFS Investigators, MelaNostrum Consortium, Landi, M. T., Bishop, D. T., MacGregor, S., Machiela, M. J., Stratigos, A. J., Ghiorzo, P., Brossard, M., Calista, D., Choi, J., Fargnoli, M. C., Zhang, T. & 45 others, Rodolfo, M., Trower, A. J., Menin, C., Martinez, J., Hadjisavvas, A., Song, L., Stefanaki, I., Scolyer, R., Yang, R., Goldstein, A. M., Potrony, M., Kypreou, K. P., Pastorino, L., Queirolo, P., Pellegrini, C., Cattaneo, L., Zawistowski, M., Gimenez-Xavier, P., Rodriguez, A., Elefanti, L., Manoukian, S., Rivoltini, L., Smith, B. H., Loizidou, M. A., Del Regno, L., Massi, D., Mandala, M., Khosrotehrani, K., Akslen, L. A., Amos, C. I., Andresen, P. A., Avril, M-F., Azizi, E., Soyer, H. P., Bataille, V., Dalmasso, B., Bowdler, L. M., Burdon, K. P., Chen, W. V., Codd, V., Craig, J. E., Harris, J., Shi, J., Iles, M. M. & Law, M. H., May 2020, In : Nature Genetics. 52, 5, p. 494-504 11 p.

Research output: Contribution to journal › Article

1 Citation (Scopus)

Genome-wide association study of antidepressant treatment resistance in a population-based cohort using health service prescription data and meta-analysis with GENDEP

Wigmore, E. M., Hafferty, J. D., Hall, L. S., Howard, D. M., Clarke, T-K., Fabbri, C., Lewis, C. M., Uher, R., Navrady, L., Adams, M. J., Zeng, Y., Campbell, A., Gibson, J., Thomson, P. A., Hayward, C., Smith, B., Hocking, L. J., Padmanabhan, S., Deary, I. J., Porteous, D. J. & 4 others, Mors, O., Mattheisen, M., Nicodemus, K. K. & McIntosh, A. M., Apr 2020, In : Pharmacogenomics Journal. 20, p. 329-341 13 p.

Research output: Contribution to journal › Article

Open Access

File