Professor Habib Naqvi

Chief Executive of the NHS Race and Health Observatory

The Race and Health Observatory tackles ethnic inequalities in health and care by facilitating research, making health policy recommendations, and enabling long-term transformational change.

Habib joined the NHS in 2001 and spent several years working at the Department of Health and Social Care, where he led national policy. From 2013, Habib directed the development and implementation of national health equity programmes for the NHS and has given evidence to the UK’s House of Commons Health and Social Care Committee.

Habib was awarded an MBE in the 2019 Queen’s Birthday Honours for services to equality and diversity in the NHS. He received a fellowship through distinction at the Faculty of Public Health in 2023 and was awarded the title of honorary visiting professor of health equity at the Queen’s Institute for Medicine, University of Bolton. Habib is listed in the Health Service Journal’s ‘100 most influential people in health’.