Sir Richard Doll 1912–2005

Stephanie Blows and Simon Chapman

Abstract

Sir Richard Doll, who died in July aged 92, was an epidemiologist who demonstrated one of the most important causality relationships of the past century: the association between smoking and lung cancer. In collaboration with Sir Austin Bradford Hill, Doll conducted first a case control study and then a prospective cohort study of British doctors, comparing rates of lung cancer amongst smokers and nonsmokers. Although only a small number of deaths occurred in the first few years of the cohort study, Doll demonstrated a clear and significant increase in mortality from lung cancer as smoking increased and a smaller but significant increase in coronary thrombosis. In the 1950s, when 80 per cent of the British population smoked, the implications of these findings were very important.

New South Wales Public Health Bulletin 16(10) 159 - 160 (2005) doi:10.1071/NB05044