Arild Bjørndal

Arild Bjørndal, long a spokesman for evidence-based policy and practice, is director at The Centre for Child and Adolescent Mental Health, Eastern and Southern Norway (RBUP). This foundation was established in 1998 by the Ministry of Health and is dedicated to support quality improvement in all services relevant to child and adolescent mental health. For a number of years Bjørndal has served as professor of public health at the University of Oslo. Previously he has worked as department chair at the National Institute for Public Health, in the Directorate of Social and Health Affairs and at the Norwegian Knowledge Centre for the Health Services.

A main interest is how to improve decision-making in public policy, but he is active also in other areas, e.g. studies of the effects of meditation on quality of life, preventive medicine, health services research and knowledge management. Through extensive outreach activities, he has worked to get patients more actively involved in decisions that affect their own lives and health.

Since the start of the Cochrane Collaboration and later in the Campbell Collaboration he has been pursuing research synthesis as prerequisite for evidence based policy and practice. The Campbell work has led him to collaborate actively with leaders and practitioners in education, child welfare, social work, policing and justice.

Bjørndal has published a number of books in Norwegian, is the author of a hundred articles in peer reviewed journals and numerous editorials, debate articles and health related articles for lay people. Bjørndal initiated the Norwegian Electronic Health Library and helped establish the Norwegian Knowledge Centre for the Health Services.