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Professor Tony McMichael MB BS (Univ Adelaide), PhD (Monash Univ), FAFPHM, FTSE Current Position: Professor Contact Details: (Building 62, ANU map) National Centre for Epidemiology and Population Health The Australian National University Canberra, ACT, 0200 Australia T: +61 2 6125 4578 F: +61 2 6125 0740 Email

Tony McMichael, medical graduate and epidemiologist, was previously Professor of Epidemiology at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine (1994-2001). He currently holds an Australia Fellowship (2007-2012) from the National Health and Medical Research Council, is Honorary Professor in Climate Change and Human Health at the University of Copenhagen, and is an Honorary Fellow of the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine. During 2008-2009 he is President of the International Society of Environmental Epidemiology.
Professor McMichael’s primary research focus is on global climate change, environmental factors and human health – encompassing studies at local, national and international levels. His pioneering research and writing on the health risks of climate change, in the 1990s, was combined with his central role in health risk assessment for the UN's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC, 1993-2007). During 2001-2007, while Director of NCEPH, he developed programs of research on the health impacts of large-scale environmental and climatic changes, and environmental influences on autoimmune diseases. The NCEPH research program on climate change health that he heads is now one of the largest and most internationally active in the world.
He has been an advisor and consultant on environmental health issues to WHO (with whom he works closely on climate change issues), the UN Environment Program, the World Bank and other international bodies. His combined interests in environmental, social, cultural and evolutionary influences on disease patterns underpin his further research involvement in relation to emerging infectious diseases in this 'renaissant' microbial era.

Research Interests

• Climate change and human health: studies of current, emerging and estimated future risks, and adaptive strategies to lessen risks   (See details via link at left: NCEPH/Research Areas)
• Environmental and social influences on the ecology of infectious disease emergence and occurrence
• Urban environment, health and sustainability: social and physical influences on patterns of health, with particular reference to food systems, transport systems and energy use
• Food systems, nutrition, energy balance and health: population and individual aspects

Selected Recent Publications

McMichael AJ, Friel S, Nyong T, Corvalan C. Global environmental change and health: impacts, inequalities, and the health sector. Brit Med J 2008; 336:191-194.  http://www.bmj.com/cgi/content/short/336/7637/191

Frumkin H, McMichael AJ. Climate change and public health: thinking, communicating, acting. Am J Prev Med. 2008; 35: 403-10. http://www.bvsde.paho.org/bvsacd/cd68/HFrumkin.pdf

McMichael AJ, Wilkinson P, Kovats S, et al. International study of temperature, heat and urban mortality: the ISOTHURM project. Int J Epidemiol 2008; 37: 1121-32. http://ije.oxfordjournals.org/cgi/content/abstract/dyn086

Friel S, Marmot M, McMichael AJ, Kjellstrom T, Vagero D. Global health equity and climate stabilisation - need for a common agenda. Lancet 2008; 372: 1677-83. doi:10.1016/S0140-6736(08)61692-X  http://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736(08)61692-X/fulltext

McMichael AJ, Woodruff R. Climate Change and Infectious Disease. Chapter in: Mayer K H, Pizer H (eds) Social Ecology of Infectious Disease. NY: Academic Press, 2008, pp 378-407.

McMichael AJ, Powles J, Butler CD, Uauy R. Food, livestock production, energy, climate change and health. Lancet 2007; 370:1253-1263. http://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140673607612562/fulltext

McMichael AJ, Woodruff R, Hales S. Climate change and human health: Present and future risks. Lancet 2006; 367: 859-69. (http://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140673606680793/fulltext

McMichael AJ. Population health as the 'bottom line' of sustainability: a contemporary challenge for public health researchers. European J Public Health 2006, 16: 579-81. http://eurpub.oxfordjournals.org/cgi/reprint/16/6/579

McMichael AJ. Integrating nutrition and ecology: Balancing the health of humans and biosphere. Public Health Nutrition, 2005; 8: 706-715. doi:10.1079/PHN2005769

Weiss R, McMichael AJ. Social and environmental risk factors in the emergence of infectious diseases. Nature Medicine 2004; 10: S70-76. doi:10.1038/nm1150  http://www.nature.com/nm/journal/v10/n12s/full/nm1150.html

McMichael AJ, Campbell-Lendrum D, Ebi K, Githeko A, Scheraga J, Woodward A (eds). Climate Change and Human Health: Risks and Responses. [book] Geneva: WHO, 2003, 322pp.