Walter Werner Holland | |
---|---|
Born | Teplice-Sanov, Czechoslovakia | 5 March 1929
Died | 14 February 2018 88) London | (aged
Citizenship | British |
Occupation | Epidemiologist |
Academic background | |
Alma mater | St Thomas's Hospital Medical School |
Academic work | |
Discipline | Epidemiology |
Institutions | St Thomas's Hospital Medical School |
Walter Werner Holland (5 March 1929 –14 February 2018) was an epidemiologist and public health physician. [1] [2]
Holland was born on 5 March 1929 in Teplice-Sanov,Czechoslovakia,part of the German-speaking Sudetenland,to a Jewish family. [3] His parents were Henry Holland and Hertha Zentner. With the rise of Hitler the family fled to England in 1939,just in time. His grandfather who remained in Czechoslovakia died shortly afterwards but his grandmother was deported to Theresienstadt (Terezín) concentration camp where she perished. [4]
He attended Rugby School and then went to St Thomas's Hospital Medical School where he qualified in medicine in 1954,having obtained a first degree in Physiology. He served in the Royal Air Force,attached to the Epidemiological Research Laboratory at Colindale,North London and,after a further appointment as Lecturer to the Department of Medicine at St Thomas's,he was made MRC Clinical Research Fellow in the Department of Epidemiology and Medical Statistics at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine. This was followed by a year in the Department of Epidemiology at Johns Hopkins School of Hygiene and then his return to St Thomas's in 1962 and his appointment to Professor in 1968.
It was at St. Thomas's that Holland developed his academic reputation. He was appointed Chair of Clinical Epidemiology and Social Medicine and established the Department of Community Medicine. [5] He subsequently established the associated Health Services Research Unit with core funding from the Department of Health. He assembled a large staff including epidemiologists,social scientists and statisticians. They conducted a large number of studies on epidemiology of chronic respiratory disease,blood pressure,smoking,air pollution and the application of epidemiologic principles to health services research. [6] [7] He established strong links with fellow public health researchers in the United States,Australia and Japan. [8]
He retired as Emeritus Professor of Public Health Medicine in 1994 and was appointed Visiting Professor at London School of Economics. [9]
Holland has had a very wide contribution to the development of epidemiology and public health. His groundbreaking paper on validation of medical screening procedures,published jointly with fellow epidemiologist Archie Cochrane in 1971,became a classic in the field. [10]
The London School of Economics established two prizes in his honour. These are the Walter Holland Prize for Best Dissertation and the Walter Holland Prize for Best Overall Performance which are awarded annually to MSc Global Health Policy students. [11]
Archibald Leman Cochrane was a Scottish physician noted for his book, Effectiveness and Efficiency: Random Reflections on Health Services, which advocated the use of randomized controlled trials (RCTs) to improve clinical trials and medical interventions. His advocacy of RCTs eventually led to the creation of the Cochrane Library database of systematic reviews, the UK Cochrane Centre in Oxford and Cochrane, an international organization of review groups that are based at research institutions worldwide. He is known as one of the fathers of modern clinical epidemiology and is considered to be the originator of the idea of evidence-based medicine. The Archie Cochrane Archive is held at the Archie Cochrane Library at University Hospital Llandough, Penarth.
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John Murray Last was a preeminent Canadian public health scholar, prolific author, scientist and teacher whose reference texts are used by schools of public health as well as community medicine and epidemiology practitioners throughout the world. He was also an outspoken advocate for change, especially on the need for a stronger and more effective voice for public health, and the need for political action on climate change.
Dame Anne Mandall Johnson DBE FMedSci is a British epidemiologist, known for her work in public health, especially the areas of HIV, sexually transmitted infections and infectious diseases.
Gillian Catherine Leng, Lady Cosford CBE is a British health administrator, academic, visiting professor at King's College London and the former Chief Executive of the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE), where she was responsible for several programmes and guidelines including the guidelines on COVID-19. In 2023 she was elected president-elect of the Royal Society of Medicine (RSM).
Haroutune Armenian, is a Lebanese born Armenian-American academic, physician, doctor of public health (1974), Professor, President of the American University of Armenia, President Emeritus, American University of Armenia. Professor in Residence, UCLA, Fielding School of Public Health.
Kay-Tee Khaw, is a Singaporean British physician and academic, specialising in the maintenance of health in later life and the causes and prevention of chronic diseases. She has been Professor of Clinical Gerontology at the University of Cambridge since 1989 and a Fellow of Gonville and Caius College, Cambridge since 1991.
Department of Community Medicine, St Thomas's Hospital Medical School, London was the foremost centre for public health research in the UK in the 1970s and 1980s. Some of its records are held in The National Archives.
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