It is with sadness that the Department of Health Policy must announce the passing of Walter Holland, Emeritus Professor of Public Health Medicine and a Visiting Professor at the School.
Walter Werner Holland was born on March 5, 1929 in Teplice-Sanov, Czechoslovakia to Henry Holland and Hertha Zentner. The family fled persecution under the Nazis, moving to London in 1939. He attended several schools including Rugby School, before going on to St Thomas’s Hospital Medical School to study medicine, developing a passion for research. He qualified 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 an appointment as Lecturer to the Department of Medicine at St Thomas’s, he was made Medical Research Council’s 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. He returned to St Thomas’s in 1962 and was appointed to Professor in 1968.
It was at St. Thomas’s that Walter developed his academic reputation. He established the Department of Clinical Epidemiology and Social Medicine and subsequently the associated Health Services Research Unit with funding from the Department of Health. There he assembled a large staff including epidemiologists, social scientists and statisticians. Walter and his team 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. While at St Thomas’, he established close links with LSE, and good relationships with Professor Richard Titmuss and Professor Brian Abel-Smith.
Walter published prodigiously. Among his 300 articles, a ground-breaking paper on the validation of screening procedures published jointly with Archie Cochrane in 1971 became a classic in the field, showing that there was no difference in mortality or morbidity after eight years between those screened regularly, and those who only received their normal medical care. He edited the Oxford Textbook of Public Health, and in 2007 coordinated the publication of the “Development of Modern Epidemiology” to mark the 50th anniversary of the International Epidemiological Association. More recently, in 2013 Walter published a critically acclaimed account of the development of Health Services Research in the UK, and in 2014 an essay entitled Lessons from the Past, in which he shared his reflections on the changes in the organisation and management of health services in the UK over his more than 50 years working in the field.
Walter gained many professional awards and positions which recognised the scale of his contribution to the development of both epidemiology and public health. These included the CBE in 1992, election as Member of the Society of Scholars at the John Hopkins University in 1970, nomination as a “Hero of Public Health” by John Hopkins University in 1992, and the Europe et Médicine Prize of the Institut des Sciences de la Santé. He was President of the International Epidemiological Association and of the Faculty of Public Health Medicine and an Honorary Member of the Italian Society of Public Health. Most recently in 2010 he was awarded an Honorary Fellowship of the Faculty of Public Health.
Walter became a Visiting Professor at the LSE in 1998 at the invitation of Professor Elias Mossialos, and over the years made an enormous contribution to the development of LSE Health and Social Care. He spent his time at LSE writing on the past and future of public health in the UK, screening in health care, the foundations for health improvement, and the development of modern epidemiology. Walter continued to advise and teach, and focussed on providing opportunities for others to undertake research into population health. He was immensely well respected, much loved and admired by his colleagues and will be greatly missed.
Walter is survived by his wife Fiona and his three sons. His son Michael is a Visiting Senior Fellow in the Department.
Professor Elias Mossialos said: “Walter was a giant in his profession and a penetrating thinker. His combination of insightful public health and health policy analysis and wit knew no equal. Walter has been a wonderful colleague, friend and mentor for years.”
Professor Alistair McGuire said: “Walter established a world class centre in public health research at St Thomas’ through asking important questions, meticulous attention to detail and hard work. He did so with an enquiring mind and a gracious allocation of time to colleagues. He kept these professional attributes to the end. He was a kind and friendly colleague who will be sorely missed.”
Walter has been an extraordinarily generous and inspiring colleague and a role model for many LSE academics working in health policy. He was always optimistic about the future, enthusiastic about social progress and passionate about health policy. It has been an enormous privilege to be exposed to his insightful knowledge, including lunch discussions on recent European affairs, and especially, the importance, and limits, of statistical measurement for policymaking. He will be missed.
I am saddened indeed by the passing of Walter. I first met him in 1983 when I worked at the Nuffield Trust. Since then we have been in regular touch and I had the honour of publishing one of his last articles, on learning from the past, in the International Journal of Health Planning and Management. He was very generous to me personally in his reactions to my work and I appreciated his wisdom. He was wary of trendy ideas and policy fads which were amnesiac regarding the past and rightly so. His unparalleled contribution in public health was over time augmented by his policy contributions, often making the case for evidence-based policy as opposed to the ideological enthusiasm of the age. He was a gentleman. I know from those who worked in his unit that he could be quite a demanding boss. Maybe he was so kind to me because he never had to put up with me on a daily basis! Anyway, the whole health field with all its specialisms should mourn his passing.
Terribly sad news. Walter was a giant in the field – and generously shared his time with colleagues at the LSE over the last quarter century. He always spoke with passion about the NHS and from time to time reminded us of the way the health care system had worked in England prior to its introduction. Indeed, he would also caution all of us not to forget to learn from past experiences. Institutional memories are short, and we overlook at our peril both past failures and success within health care systems. They can be very relevant to today’s challenges. On a lighter note i remember a somewhat unlikely conversation i had with him not too long ago on going to see a gala version of Star Wars: The Force Awakens to support a family friend associated with the film – he rather enjoyed the experience.
Very sad to hear of the passing of another giant icon. I was in the St Thomas Social Medicine Centre in 1976-79, as a part of the Derbyshire Smoking Study led by Beulah Bewley – who also died earlier this year – and although Walter always seemed to confuse me with Martin (Bland – we look nothing like each other) he was always hospitable and supportive. The Centre did good work and laid great foundations, and was a great stepping stone for me to create a Centre for Diversity in Health & Care examining ‘ethnic and migrant’ health issues. Some of Walter’s innovations or ideas were helpful to me in creating another multi-disciplinary centre – not least his insistence on decent coffee and a communal session to get together with colleagues at least weekly.
Walter personified the exceptional creativity of twentieth century epidemiology and health services research. He had a flair for bringing scholars and clinicians together, to everyone’s benefit. Walter was instrumental in my appointment as Brian Abel-Smith’s biographer – he convinced me that this was a job for a historian through his enthusiasm for the richness of the archives and potential for oral history, some of which was, of course, also his own. He always found time for constructive discussions no matter how busy he was with his own research and his passion for intellectual activity sustained him during his illnesses. Even last November he was considering participating in a witness seminar on the creation of the NHS Internal Market. I will miss those conversations.