Biography

Professor Hedley has been Chair Professor of Community Medicine at the University of Hong Kong since 1988. He was Head of Department from 1988 to 2000, and was formerly Henry Mechan Professor of Public Health at the University of Glasgow from 1983 to 88. Professor Hedley trained in the medical schools of Aberdeen (1959-65) and Edinburgh (1972-73) universities. In 1964, he was a Nuffield Scholar in Tropical Medicine in the Fiji Islands, based at the Fiji School of Medicine. He obtained his MD by research and the MRCP (UK) in 1972 and MFPH of the Royal College of Physicians (UK) by examination in 1975.

Professor Hedley worked in general medicine, geriatrics, endocrinology and diabetes in Aberdeen, Dundee and Nottingham before moving into the field of epidemiology and public health. He was responsible with others for developing the Scottish and Trent Thyroid Follow-up Registers and the Nottingham Diabetes Clinical Information System. From 1976 to 1983, he was senior lecturer in epidemiology in the Nottingham University Department of Community Health and Honorary Consultant in Community Medicine to the Nottingham and Derbyshire Health Authorities. Between 1977 and 1986, he participated in and conducted workshops and surveys for the World Health Organization on the risk approach in maternal and child health in Nottingham, Geneva, Kuala Lumpur, Manila, Fiji and China. From 1977 to 1983, he worked on assignments in Khon Kaen, Thailand, during the development of the new Khon Kaen University Health Sciences Centre. In 1983, he was awarded the honorary degree of MD, presented by His Majesty King Bhumipol Adulyadej.

From the late 1960s to the present, Professor Hedley has worked on the development of health services research and the application of the informatics approach to patient care between the primary and secondary sectors of the health care system. He is currently working with Thai colleagues on the development of a information system to support services for cleft abnormality in northeast Thailand. He was Chairman of the Hong Kong Health Services Research Committee Expert Subcommittee on Grant Applications from 1993 to 2003 and chairman of the Physiotherapists Board from 1989 to 2003. His main research and public health advocacy interests in recent years have been in the field of environmental health, including outdoor and indoor air pollution, the prevention of diseases caused by tobacco and assessment of environmental risks from measurement of persistent organic pollutants including dioxins and polychlorobiphenyl compounds in breast milk. He was a member of the Advisory Council on the Environment and the Environmental Impact Assessment Subcommittee from 1996 to 2002. He is currently a member of the US Health Effects Institute (Boston) International Scientific Oversight Committee (ISOC). He was a member, and later Chairman, of the Hong Kong Council on Smoking and Health from 1994 to 2002. In 1999, he received a WHO medal for outstanding contributions to public health.