Walter W. Holland

Holland was born on 5 March 1929 in Teplice-Sanov, Czechoslovakia to a Jewish family. 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.[2]

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.[3] 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.[4][5]

He established strong links with fellow public health researchers in the United States, Australia and Japan.[6]

He was Emeritus Professor of Public Health Medicine and Visiting Professor at London School of Economics.[7]

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.[8]

• 1980-82 President, Section of Epidemiology and Community Medicine, Royal Society of Medicine
• 1985 chairman, Society for Social Medicine
• 1987–90 President, International Epidemiological Association
• 1989-1992 President, Faculty of Community Medicine/Public Health Medicine of the UK Royal College of Physicians in 1989.
• 1981 Awarded Doctor Honoris Causa, University of Bordeaux
• 1985 Elected Honorary Member, American Epidemiological Society
• 1989 Awarded Salomon Neumann Medal by German Society of Social Medicine
• 1989 Awarded Medal of Distinction by the University of Pavia
• 1990 Awarded Doctor Honoris Causa, University of Berlin
• 1991 Elected "Hero of Public Health" by Johns Hopkins University School of Hygiene
• 1992 Awarded CBE
• 1993 Honorary Member Society for Social Medicine

• Professor Walter Holland CBE PPFPHM FRCP in interview with Dr Michael Ashley-Miller: Interview 1, Part 1 in the Medical Sciences Video Archive, Special Collections, Oxford Brookes University.
• Professor Walter Holland CBE PPFPHM FRCP in interview with Dr Michael Ashley-Miller: Interview 1, Part 2 in the Medical Sciences Video Archive, Special Collections, Oxford Brookes University.
• Professor Walter Holland CBE PPFPHM FRCP in interview with Dr Michael Ashley-Miller: Interview 2, Part 1 in the Medical Sciences Video Archive, Special Collections, Oxford Brookes University.
• Professor Walter Holland CBE PPFPHM FRCP in interview with Dr Michael Ashley-Miller: Interview 2, Part 2 in the Medical Sciences Video Archive, Special Collections, Oxford Brookes University.
• Professor Walter Holland CBE PPFPHM FRCP in interview with Dr Michael Ashley-Miller: Interview 3 (postscript) in the Medical Sciences Video Archive, Special Collections, Oxford Brookes University.