 Pollock was head of the Public Health Policy Unit at University College London and director of research and development at University College London Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust.Pollock set up and directed the Centre for International Public Health Policy at the University of Edinburgh from 2005 to 2011.She was professor of public health research and policy at Barts and The London School of Medicine and Dentistry, Queen Mary University of London

In 2014, she was elected to the Council of the British Medical Association, for a four-year term.