Rate My Professor Cristina Cleghorn

Associate Professor Cristina Cleghorn is a public health nutrition researcher in the Department of Public Health at the University of Otago, Wellington. She holds a BSc, an MSc, and a PhD, which she completed at the University of Leeds in the United Kingdom, investigating the relationships between agrobiodiversity, dietary diversity, and nutritional status in Tanzania. In her current role as a Senior Research Fellow in the SiHMNet modelling network, Cleghorn was previously part of the Burden of Disease Epidemiology, Equity and Cost-Effectiveness Programme (BODE³). Her career focuses on applying advanced modelling techniques to evaluate the effectiveness and cost-effectiveness of interventions aimed at improving population health outcomes.

Cleghorn's research specializations center on sustainable nutrition and the prevention of chronic disease through diet, physical activity, and tobacco control. She has quantified greenhouse gas emissions associated with dietary consumption in New Zealand and assesses the health and environmental benefits of sustainable diets specific to Aotearoa New Zealand. She leads a Healthier Lives-funded project entitled 'A sustainable diet for health and the climate in Aotearoa New Zealand,' which explores realistic food policy ideas for healthier and more climate-friendly eating patterns. Her influential publications include 'Modelled health impacts of three stakeholder-selected policies to support healthy and environmentally sustainable population diets in New Zealand' published in Food Policy in 2026, 'Updating greenhouse gas emission estimates in the New Zealand-specific dietary life cycle-assessment (LCA) database' in Environmental Research Communications in 2026, 'Real-time recording: A scoping review of methods to study children's real-time exposure to food and food marketing online' in Appetite in 2026, 'Developing policy to support sustainable diets in Aotearoa New Zealand with stakeholders' in Food Frontiers in 2025, and 'SDG2 Zero Hunger and the need to re-think food production in Aotearoa: Viewpoint' in the Journal of the Royal Society of New Zealand in 2025. Through her work, Cleghorn contributes significantly to evidence-informed dietary policies that promote both human health and environmental sustainability in New Zealand.