Rate My Professor Janet Hoek

Professor Janet Hoek holds the position of Professor in the Department of Public Health at the University of Otago, Wellington, New Zealand, where she co-directs ASPIRE Aotearoa, a University of Otago Research Centre dedicated to advancing research on smokefree policy and the regulation of nicotine products. Her academic background is diverse, beginning with first degrees in English Literature—including a BA (Honours, first class) and MA (Distinction)—supplemented by studies in Botany, Zoology, Microbiology, and French. She later earned a postgraduate Diploma in Business Administration (Distinction) and completed her PhD at Massey University in 1996, investigating the effects of question wording and administration on survey responses predicting voting behaviour. Prior to Otago, she was promoted to full professor at Massey University in 2003. At Otago, Hoek teaches the course PUBH744 Healthy Public Policy, leads the Health Research Council-funded Whakahā o te Pā Harakeke programme as Principal Investigator, and has directed several other Health Research Council projects while securing funding from the Royal Society Marsden Fund. She serves as Senior Editor for Tobacco Control (BMJ Group) and has contributed to numerous research grant selection committees, strategy development groups, and policy advisory panels.

Hoek's main research interests centre on marketing and public policy, with particular emphasis on smokefree policy and nicotine product regulation, plain or standardised packaging and tobacco branding, novel on-pack tobacco warnings complemented by efficacy messages, vaping dynamics including transitions from smoking, uptake among smokers and non-smokers especially youth, identity shifts during nicotine cessation, tobacco companies' self-proclaimed transformations, and industry arguments portraying smoking as an informed choice. She has provided expert evidence to New Zealand government departments and parliamentary Select Committees, participated in NGO and government advisory groups, and served on an Australian government expert advisory group overseeing plain packaging introduction and updates. Her impactful career, spanning over 20 years, includes more than 250 conference presentations and over 200 peer-reviewed publications that have influenced key policies such as New Zealand's Smokefree Action Plan (2021) and the Smokefree Environments and Regulated Products Amendment Act 2020 (SERPA). Notable publications feature “You just wanna hit it … ‘cause like it smells like fun’: a qualitative investigation of adolescents’ experiences of nicotine vaping in Aotearoa New Zealand” (Kōtuitui, 2024), “How do New Zealand youth perceive the smoke-free generation policy? A qualitative analysis” (Tobacco Control, 2024), and “Smoking is bad, it's not cool…yet I'm still doing it: Cues for tobacco consumption in a ‘dark’ market” (Journal of Business Research, 2015). Awards include the 2022 Universities New Zealand Critic and Conscience of Society Award, which granted $50,000 for her documentation of vaping harms to young people, and election as a Fellow of the Society for Research on Nicotine and Tobacco (2020).