Jean Adams trained in medicine before completing a PhD on socio-economic inequalities in health. This was followed by an MRC Health of the Population fellowship and an NIHR Career Development Fellowship both exploring influences on health behaviours and socio-economic inequalities in these. During these fellowships Jean was appointed Lecturer, then Senior Lecturer, in Public Health at Newcastle University. Jean moved to Cambridge University to join the MRC Epidemiology Unit and CEDAR in 2014 where she helped establish the Dietary Public Health group. She became Programme Leader in the newly formed Population Health Interventions programme in 2020.

Jean’s research focuses on population-level influences on, and interventions to improve, dietary public health. She conducts observational, evaluative and theoretical work exploring how social, fiscal and physical environments influence what people eat and how these can be changed to help people eat better. Current and recent examples of research leadership include evaluations of the UK ‘soda tax’, ‘junk free’ supermarket checkouts, calorie menu labelling and food marketing restrictions.