Tony McMichael

Tony McMichael was an Australian epidemiologist who was a pioneer in the field of environmental health. He was born in 1942 in Adelaide, where he studied medicine at the University of Adelaide. He completed his PhD in epidemiology at Monash University in 1972, and then worked as an academic and researcher at the University of North Carolina, CSIRO, the University of Adelaide, and the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine. He was the director of the National Centre for Epidemiology and Population Health at the Australian National University from 2001 to 2007, and held an NHMRC Australia Fellowship until his retirement in 2012. He was also an honorary professor of climate change and health at the University of Copenhagen. McMichael made significant contributions to public health research and policy, especially on the health impacts of environmental factors such as lead, passive smoking, ozone depletion, land degradation, biodiversity loss, urbanisation, and climate change. He coined the term 'healthy worker effect' to describe the statistical bias that overestimates the health status of workers in hazardous industries. He also established a link between benzene exposure and leukemia among tyre workers in North Carolina. He led a landmark study in Port Pirie that showed the association between lead pollution and impaired cognitive development in children, which influenced the global phase-out of leaded petrol. He also conducted research on the effects of second-hand smoke on lung cancer and heart disease, and advocated for smoke-free policies. Since the early 1990s, McMichael was a world authority on the risks to human health from climate change. He wrote one of the first books on this topic, Planetary Overload: Global Environmental Change and Human Health, in 1993. He advised both the World Health Organization and the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) on this issue. He also led several international projects that investigated the health consequences of climate change in different regions and populations, such as malaria transmission in Africa, heat stress in Europe, food security in Asia, and infectious diseases in Australia. He also explored the evolutionary and historical aspects of human health and climate change, such as the role of climatic fluctuations in shaping human migrations and civilisations. McMichael received many awards and recognitions for his research, including the Australian Society for Medical Research Young Investigator Award (2004), the Bill Gole Postdoctoral MND Research Fellowship (2009), the Vice Chancellor’s Emerging Researcher of the Year award (2011), the Lorne Conference on Protein Structure and Function Young Investigator Prize (2012), the MND Australia Betty Laidlaw MND Research Prize (2017), and the University of New South Wales Eureka Prize for Scientific Research (2022). He also received an Order of Australia Medal (2020) for his service to medical research and education, and was elected to the US National Academy of Sciences (2011) and the Australian Academy of Science (2013). McMichael died on 26 September 2014 at his home in Canberra from pneumonia. He was 71 years old. He is survived by his wife Judith, his three children, and his six grandchildren. His legacy lives on through his publications, his students, his colleagues, and his advocacy for a healthier planet.