Darrell Gale Biog

Darrell has been Director of Public Health for East Sussex since July 2018. He came to the county having been Acting Director of Public Health for five Unitary Authorities in Berkshire, where he previously led the public health and leisure departments in Wokingham Borough.

In East Sussex, Darrell has championed a focus on the inequalities in health that exist within the county and has focussed on addressing the causes of the causes of these through developing strong partnerships across sectors and communities and developed his team to both innovate and learn from all they do. He leads work across Sussex and the Southeast on Suicide prevention and has recently been awarded a Churchill Fellowship to investigate the work of activists in reducing suicides in San Francisco and Sydney so that learning can be applied to his leadership of multi-agency working in reducing suicides at Beachy Head.

His route into public health was through specialist training in London and Kent; having pursued a prior career across the voluntary sector; local government and the NHS working initially in LGBT sexual health, and more latterly across a wider range of public health issues. Originally trained in Architecture, this gives Darrell an almost unique background amongst his peers, and one where he surveys the broadest of horizons when looking at the determinants of health and brings the most creative approaches to problem solving. In East Sussex, this has led Darrell to examine the impact of housing on health and to champion built and natural environment partnerships and the cultural and creative sectors to realise their role in creating and maintaining good health and wellbeing. Darrell has recently taken on chairing the Association of Directors of Public Health (ADPH) “Healthy Places Project Advisory Group“, which aims to bring together the professions of Planning and Public Health, and has acted as ADPH spokesperson on Healthy Places and Climate Change.

The Responsibilities of a Director of Public Health are to deliver:

  • Measurable health improvement;
  • Health Protection including emergency response;
  • Public health input to health and care service planning and commissioning;
  • Reduction of heath inequalities.

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