Recent from talks
Austin Bradford Hill
Knowledge base stats:
Talk channels stats:
Members stats:
Austin Bradford Hill
Sir Austin Bradford Hill CBE FRS (8 July 1897 – 18 April 1991) was an English epidemiologist who pioneered the modern randomised clinical trial and, together with Richard Doll, demonstrated the connection between cigarette smoking and lung cancer. Hill is widely known for the "Bradford Hill" criteria for considering whether an observed association is causal.
Hill was born in London on 8 July 1897. He was one of the sons of Sir Leonard Erskine Hill FRS, a distinguished physiologist, and Janet Alexander. He was the grandson of noted scholar George Birkbeck Hill. As a child he lived at the family home, Osborne House, Loughton, Essex; he was educated at Chigwell School, Essex. He served as a pilot in the First World War but was invalided out when he contracted tuberculosis. Two years in hospital and two years of convalescence put a medical qualification out of the question and he took a degree in economics by correspondence at London University.
In 1922, Hill went to work for the Industry Fatigue Research Board. He was associated with the medical statistician Major Greenwood and, to improve his statistical knowledge, Hill attended lectures by Karl Pearson. When Greenwood accepted a chair at the newly formed London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, Hill moved with him, becoming Reader in Epidemiology and Vital Statistics in 1933 and Professor of Medical Statistics in 1947. In 1947, he was appointed Honorary Director of the Medical Research Council's Statistical Research Unit.
Hill had a distinguished career in research and teaching and as author of a very successful textbook, Principles of Medical Statistics, but he is famous for two landmark studies. He was the statistician on the Medical Research Council Streptomycin in Tuberculosis Trials Committee and their study evaluating the use of streptomycin in treating tuberculosis, is generally accepted as the first modern randomised clinical trial. The use of randomisation in agricultural experiments had been pioneered by Ronald Aylmer Fisher. The second study was rather a series of studies with Richard Doll on smoking and lung cancer. The first paper, published in 1950, was a case-control study comparing lung cancer patients with matched controls. Doll and Hill also started a long-term prospective study of smoking and health. This was an investigation of the smoking habits and health of 40,701 British doctors for several years (British doctors study). Fisher was in profound disagreement with the conclusions and procedures of the smoking/cancer work and from 1957 he criticised the work in the press and in academic publications.
In 1965, built upon the work of Hume and Popper, Hill suggested several aspects of causality in medicine and biology, which have remained in use by epidemiologists to date.
On Hill's death in 1991, Peter Armitage wrote, "to anyone involved in medical statistics, epidemiology or public health, Bradford Hill was quite simply the world's leading medical statistician."
In 1950–52, Hill was president of the Royal Statistical Society. He was awarded its Guy Medal in Gold in 1953, and the Harben Gold Medal of the Institute of Public Health and Hygiene. The Society awards a medal in the field of medical statistics in Hill's name.
Hill was made a Fellow of the Royal Society (FRS) in 1954. Fisher was one of the proposers. The certificate of election read:
Hub AI
Austin Bradford Hill AI simulator
(@Austin Bradford Hill_simulator)
Austin Bradford Hill
Sir Austin Bradford Hill CBE FRS (8 July 1897 – 18 April 1991) was an English epidemiologist who pioneered the modern randomised clinical trial and, together with Richard Doll, demonstrated the connection between cigarette smoking and lung cancer. Hill is widely known for the "Bradford Hill" criteria for considering whether an observed association is causal.
Hill was born in London on 8 July 1897. He was one of the sons of Sir Leonard Erskine Hill FRS, a distinguished physiologist, and Janet Alexander. He was the grandson of noted scholar George Birkbeck Hill. As a child he lived at the family home, Osborne House, Loughton, Essex; he was educated at Chigwell School, Essex. He served as a pilot in the First World War but was invalided out when he contracted tuberculosis. Two years in hospital and two years of convalescence put a medical qualification out of the question and he took a degree in economics by correspondence at London University.
In 1922, Hill went to work for the Industry Fatigue Research Board. He was associated with the medical statistician Major Greenwood and, to improve his statistical knowledge, Hill attended lectures by Karl Pearson. When Greenwood accepted a chair at the newly formed London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, Hill moved with him, becoming Reader in Epidemiology and Vital Statistics in 1933 and Professor of Medical Statistics in 1947. In 1947, he was appointed Honorary Director of the Medical Research Council's Statistical Research Unit.
Hill had a distinguished career in research and teaching and as author of a very successful textbook, Principles of Medical Statistics, but he is famous for two landmark studies. He was the statistician on the Medical Research Council Streptomycin in Tuberculosis Trials Committee and their study evaluating the use of streptomycin in treating tuberculosis, is generally accepted as the first modern randomised clinical trial. The use of randomisation in agricultural experiments had been pioneered by Ronald Aylmer Fisher. The second study was rather a series of studies with Richard Doll on smoking and lung cancer. The first paper, published in 1950, was a case-control study comparing lung cancer patients with matched controls. Doll and Hill also started a long-term prospective study of smoking and health. This was an investigation of the smoking habits and health of 40,701 British doctors for several years (British doctors study). Fisher was in profound disagreement with the conclusions and procedures of the smoking/cancer work and from 1957 he criticised the work in the press and in academic publications.
In 1965, built upon the work of Hume and Popper, Hill suggested several aspects of causality in medicine and biology, which have remained in use by epidemiologists to date.
On Hill's death in 1991, Peter Armitage wrote, "to anyone involved in medical statistics, epidemiology or public health, Bradford Hill was quite simply the world's leading medical statistician."
In 1950–52, Hill was president of the Royal Statistical Society. He was awarded its Guy Medal in Gold in 1953, and the Harben Gold Medal of the Institute of Public Health and Hygiene. The Society awards a medal in the field of medical statistics in Hill's name.
Hill was made a Fellow of the Royal Society (FRS) in 1954. Fisher was one of the proposers. The certificate of election read:
Recent media