Graham began her academic career as a
lecturer in
social policy at the
University of Bradford. She then moved to the
Open University, where she was a researcher in the Faculty of Social Sciences. In the 1980s, she joined
Coventry Polytechnic as Head of its Applied Social Studies Department. From 1988 to 1996, she was
Professor of Applied Social Studies at the
University of Warwick. She then worked at
Lancaster University, before joining the
University of York as Professor of
Health Sciences in October 2005. From 1996 to 2001, Graham was Director of the
ESRC Health Variations Programme. She was a member of the
Independent Inquiry into Inequalities in Health which reported in 1998. From 2005 to 2011, she was Director of the
Department of Health's Public Health Research Consortium. ==Honours==