London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine

This article is about the college of the University of London. For the hospital that it is affiliated with, see Hospital for Tropical Diseases.
London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine
Type Public
Established 1899 – London School of Tropical Medicine
1924 – London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine established by Royal Charter
Chancellor HRH The Princess Royal (University of London)
Director Baron Piot
Administrative staff
 766 (full-time equivalent)
Students 1,245 (2014/15)[1]
Location Bloomsbury, London, United Kingdom
Campus Urban
Affiliations University of London
Website www.lshtm.ac.uk

The London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine (informally the LSHTM) is a public research university on Keppel Street, Bloomsbury, Camden, London, and specialised in public health and tropical medicine and a constituent college of the University of London. It was founded by Sir Patrick Manson in 1899 and is one of the most prestigious institutions in the world[2][3][4] in the fields of public health and infectious diseases, ranking highly in both national and international league tables.[2][3][4]

The LSHTM's mission is to contribute to the improvement of health worldwide through the pursuit of excellence in research, postgraduate teaching and advanced training in national and international public health and tropical medicine, and through informing policy and practice in these areas. It had a total income of £101.7 million in 2009/10, of which £62.5 million was from research grants and contracts.[5]

History

The Albert Dock Seamen's Hospital in the early 20th century.

The school was founded in 1899 by Sir Patrick Manson as the London School of Tropical Medicine and located at the Albert Dock Seamen's Hospital in the London Docklands.[6] Just prior to this teaching in tropical medicine had been commenced in 1899 at the Extramural school at Edinburgh and even earlier at London's Livingstone College founded in 1893 by Charles F. Harford-Battersby (1865–1925). Before giving lectures at St George's Hospital, London, in 1895, Livingstone College afforded Manson his first opportunity to teach courses in tropical medicine.[7] Manson's early career was as a physician in the Far East where he deduced the correct etiology of filariasis, a parasitic vector based disease, transmitted through the bite of a mosquito. On his return to London, he was appointed Medical Advisor to the Colonial Office. He strongly believed that doctors should be trained in tropical medicine to treat British colonial administrators and others working throughout Britain's tropical empire. He also encouraged and mentored Ronald Ross during this period to uncover the correct etiology of malaria, which Ross subsequently discovered in 1897, winning the Nobel Prize for his efforts. The original school was established as part of the Seamen's Hospital Society.

In 1920 the school moved, with the Hospital for Tropical Diseases, to Endsleigh Gardens in central London, taking over a former hotel which had been used as a hospital for officers during the First World War.[8] In 1921 the Athlone Committee recommended the creation of an institute of state medicine, which built on a proposal by the Rockefeller Foundation to develop a London-based institution that would lead the world in the promotion of public health and tropical medicine. This enlarged school, now named the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine was granted its Royal Charter in 1924.

The school moved to its present location in Gower Street in 1929.

The school is London University's major resource for postgraduate teaching and research in public health and tropical medicine. On successful completion of their studies, students gain a University of London degree.

Building

London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine building
The Reading Room of the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine's Library taken in 1929. Image courtesy of the Library & Archives Service of the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine[1]
The Reading Room of the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine's Library taken in 1929. Image courtesy of the Library & Archives Service of the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine[9]

A competition to design a new school building to be sited in Gower Street, was held involving five architects, all experienced in laboratory design and construction. This was won in 1925 by Morley Horder and Verner Rees who located the main entrance in Keppel Street. This building was opened in 1929 by HRH the Prince of Wales. The purchase of the site and the cost of a new building was made possible through a gift of $2m from the Rockefeller Foundation.[10]

Academics

Faculties

Faculty of Epidemiology and Population Health

The Faculty of Epidemiology and Population Health aims to be a methodological centre of excellence for research in national and global health issues, to expand the limits of epidemiological thinking & multi-disciplinary research to further understanding of health issues in their full complexity, to develop, refine and disseminate tools & methods for research design, data collection, analysis and evaluation, and to conduct rigorous research in national and global health. Research publications for the Faculty can be found in LSHTM Research Online and datasets are available through LSHTM Data Compass.

The Faculty has expertise in:

Faculty of Infectious and Tropical Diseases

The Faculty of Infectious and Tropical Diseases (ITD) was formed in August 1997 and encompasses all of the laboratory-based research in the School as well as that on the clinical and epidemiological aspects of infectious and tropical diseases. It is currently headed by Simon Croft, who is Professor of Parasitology. The Faculty is organised into four large research departments. The range of disciplines represented in the faculty is very broad and inter-disciplinary research is a feature of much of its activity. Research publications for the Faculty can be found in LSHTM Research Online and datasets are available through LSHTM Data Compass.

The spectrum of diseases studied is wide and there are major research groups working on topics which include:

There is close interaction between scientists in different research teams. The Faculty has strong overseas links which provide a basis for field studies and international collaborations in developed and developing countries. Funding for research in the Faculty comes from around 45 funding organizations and agencies. Major funders of research include the Department for International Development, Medical Research Council, Wellcome Trust, BBSRC, GlaxoSmithKline and the Commission of European Communities.

Faculty of Public Health and Policy

The Faculty of Public Health and Policy aims to improve global health through research, teaching and the provision of advice in the areas of health policy, health systems and services, and individual, social and environmental influences on health. Interests and activities embrace the health needs of people living in countries at all levels of development. The School has the largest numbers of research active staff in the areas of epidemiology, public health and health services research in the UK.[11] The Faculty of Public Health and Policy has over 220 members of staff, including epidemiologists, public health physicians, economists, policy analysts, anthropologists, sociologists, historians, psychologists, statisticians and mathematicians. The Faculty's research programmes, with an annual spend of over £7m, focus on public health problems of importance both globally and in the UK, and build on an extensive network of collaborations.[12]

The research programmes exploit multidisciplinary and multi-method approaches, generate new knowledge for specific contexts and test transferability to different settings, and engage with policymakers and providers of health care to ensure research is relevant and translated into practice.

The Faculty hosts School Centres in the areas of History in Public Health,[13] Research on Drugs and Health Behaviours, Spatial Analysis in Public Health, Global Change and Health, Health of Societies in Transition (ECOHOST), and Gender Violence and Health. In addition, staff participate in Centres based in other departments, notably the Malaria Centre and the Centre for the Mathematical Modelling of Infectious Disease.

In keeping with its focus on the interface between scientific research, policy and practice, faculty staff are engaged in a very wide range of policy-influencing roles, including membership of key government advisory groups, leadership of professional bodies, membership of research funding bodies, and provision of expert advice to global health institutions. Research publications for the Faculty can be found in LSHTM Research Online and datasets are available through LSHTM Data Compass.

Research centres

Balconies at the front of the building are decorated with gilded disease vectors, here a flea (for bubonic plague).
LSHTM door sign

The School is currently home to the following research centres:

Teaching and research programmes

The library of the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine

All three Faculties offer a wide range of MSc courses and Research Degrees leading to a University of London degree of DrPH, MPhil and PhD. Courses are delivered both face-to-face in London and via distance learning in collaboration with the University of London International Programmes. The School also offers access to free online courses delivered in association with FutureLearn.

Awards

The LSHTM won the 2009 Gates Award for Global Health established by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and received $1 million in prize money. The award recognises organizations that have made an outstanding contribution to improving global health.

More recently, a team of researchers led by Professor Richard Hayes at the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine, have been awarded $37 million to test an innovative combination of strategies to prevent HIV in African countries.

Donald Reid Medal

The Donald Reid Medal is awarded triennially by the LSHTM in recognition of distinguished contributions to epidemiology.[14]

Rankings

In 2015 and 2016, US News Best Global Universities Rankings ranked the LSHTM as 3rd in the world for social sciences and public health, ranking behind only Harvard and Johns Hopkins Universities.[2][3] The School also ranked 29th in the world for clinical medicine, 20th for immunology and 39th for microbiology, contributing to an overall ranking of 114th in the world, 38th in Europe and 10th in the UK.[2]

In the 2015 CWTS Leiden Ranking, the LSHTM has been ranked top university in Europe for research impact in all fields, ahead of Oxford and Cambridge.[4] The School is also ranked 6th overall in the world for impact based on the top 1% of published papers in all fields, after MIT, Harvard, Caltech, Stanford and Berkeley, 3rd in the world for biomedical and health sciences, after only MIT and Caltech, and 5th in the world overall for collaborative research.[4]

In 2008, the UK Research Assessment Exercise (RAE) confirmed the School as a world leading centre for research. The School has been ranked one of the top three research institutions in the UK in the Times Higher Education Table of Excellence, which is based on the 2008 Research Assessment Exercise.

Notable people

References

  1. ↑ "2014/15 Students by HE provider, level, mode and domicile" (XLSX). Higher Education Statistics Agency. Retrieved 19 January 2016.
  2. 1 2 3 4 "School ranked third globally for social sciences and public health by US News & World report | London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine | LSHTM.". www.lshtm.ac.uk. Retrieved 2016-04-27.
  3. 1 2 3 "Top Social Sciences and Public Health Universities in the World | US News Best Global Universities". www.usnews.com. Retrieved 2016-04-27.
  4. 1 2 3 4 "School tops research league tables in 2015 Leiden Ranking | London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine | LSHTM.". www.lshtm.ac.uk. Retrieved 2016-04-27.
  5. ↑ "Wealth and Health: Financial data for UK higher education institutions, 2009–10". Times Higher Education. 7 April 2011. Retrieved 15 December 2011.
  6. ↑ Cook GC, Webb AJ (2001). "The Albert Dock Hospital, London: the original site (in 1899) of Tropical Medicine as a new discipline". Acta Trop. 79 (3): 249–55. doi:10.1016/S0001-706X(01)00127-9. PMID 11412810.
  7. ↑ Johnson, Ryan (1910)Colonial Mission and Imperial Tropical Medicine: Livingstone College, London, 1893–1914, Social History of Medicine Volume23, Issue3 Pp. 549–566
  8. ↑ "Albert Dock Seamen's Hospital". AIM25.
  9. ↑ "LSHTM Library & Archives Main webpage".
  10. ↑ "London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine website, The History of the Building page".
  11. ↑ RAE 2008
  12. ↑ LSHTM Annual Report 2008
  13. ↑ Centre for History in Public Health,London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, http://history.lshtm.ac.uk/
  14. ↑ London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, Report on the Work of the School 1977–1978, page 21, 1978, (London:London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine)

Further reading

Coordinates: 51°31′15″N 0°07′51″W / 51.5209°N 0.1307°W / 51.5209; -0.1307

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