Richard Horton

Dr. Richard Horton, who joined PHR’s board in 2017, is editor-in-chief of the Lancet, a position he has held since 1995. Dr. Horton was the first president of the World Association of Medical Editors and he is a past president of the U.S. Council of Science Editors. He is an honorary professor at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, University College London, and the University of Oslo. He is also a senior associate of the UK health policy think tank, the Nuffield Trust.

In 2016, Dr. Horton was appointed to the WHO’s High-Level Working Group for the Health and Human Rights of Women, Children and Adolescents. In 2016, he also chaired the Expert Group for the UN’s High-Level Commission on Health Employment and Economic Growth. From 2011 to 2016, he was co-chair of the UN’s independent Expert Review Group on Information and Accountability for Women’s and Children’s Health.

Dr. Horton received the Edinburgh medal in 2007 and the Dean’s medal from Johns Hopkins School of Public Health in 2009. In 2011, he was elected a Foreign Associate of the U.S. Institute of Medicine, and in 2015, he received the Friendship Award from the government of China. He was the 2016 recipient of the Andrija Štampar Medal for Excellence in Public Health.

As an editor, author, and keynote speaker at international medical conferences, Dr. Horton is known worldwide for his advocacy of global health issues. He has a strong stated interest in global health and medicine’s contribution to our wider culture. As he states, “The starting point for advocacy and activism in health isn’t politics; it’s the science, the evidence.”

Dr. Horton has written two reports for the Royal College of Physicians of London: Doctors in Society (2005) and Innovating for Health (2009). He wrote Health Wars (2003) about contemporary issues in medicine and health, and he has written regularly for the New York Review of Books and the TLS.

He qualified in physiology and medicine with honors from the University of Birmingham in 1986. He has also received honorary doctorates in medicine from the University of Birmingham, UK, and the Universities of Umea and Gothenburg in Sweden.