View source for Austin Bradford Hill

{{Short description|English epidemiologist and statistician (1897–1991)}}
{{for|Massachusetts State Rep.|Bradford Hill}}
{{Use dmy dates|date=March 2020}}
{{EngvarB|date=March 2020}}
{{Infobox person
|name          = Sir Austin Bradford Hill
|image         = Austin Bradford Hill.jpg
|birth_name    =
|birth_date    = 8 July 1897
|birth_place   = [[Hampstead]], London, England
|death_date    = {{death-date and age|18 April 1991|8 July 1897}}
|death_place   = [[Ulverston]], Cumbria, England
|death_cause   =
|resting_place =
|nationality   = British
|other_names   =
|known_for     = [[Bradford Hill criteria|"Bradford Hill" criteria]]
|awards        = [[Guy Medal]]  {{small|(Gold, 1953)}}
|education     =
|employer      =
|occupation    = [[Epidemiologist]] <br/> statistician
}}

'''Sir Austin Bradford Hill'''{{efn|Note that Austin Bradford Hill's surname was Hill and he went by the name "Tony".<ref>{{cite journal |last1=Armitage |first1=P |title=Obituary: Sir Austin Bradford Hill, 1897–1991 |journal= Journal of the Royal Statistical Society, Series A (Statistics in Society)|date=May 1991 |volume=154 |issue=3 |pages=482–484 |doi=10.1111/j.1467-985X.1991.tb00329.x |doi-access=free }}</ref><ref>{{cite journal |last1=Doll |first1=Richard |title=Austin Bradford Hill, 1897–1991 |journal=Statistics in Medicine |volume=12 |issue=8 |pages=795–808 |doi=10.1002/sim.4780120808|pmid=20326855 |pmc=1848247 |year=1993 }}</ref> He published under the name "A.B. Hill" in early articles, "A. Bradford Hill" beginning in the 1930s (to distinguish himself from A.V. Hill), and "Sir Austin Bradford Hill" after he was knighted in 1961. He is often referred to as Bradford Hill, sometimes with a misleading hyphen as in "Bradford-Hill criteria."}} {{post-nominals|country=GBR|CBE|FRS}}<ref name="frs">{{Cite journal | last1 = Doll | first1 = R. | authorlink = Richard Doll| doi = 10.1098/rsbm.1994.0032 | title = Austin Bradford Hill. 8 July 1897 – 18 April 1991 | journal = [[Biographical Memoirs of Fellows of the Royal Society]] | volume = 40 | pages =  128–140| year = 1994 | doi-access = free }}</ref> (8 July 1897 – 18 April 1991) was an English [[epidemiologist]] and statistician, pioneered the randomised [[clinical trial]] and, together with [[Richard Doll]], demonstrated the connection between cigarette smoking and lung cancer. Hill is widely known for pioneering the [[Bradford Hill criteria|"Bradford Hill" criteria]] for determining a causal association.<ref>{{Cite journal | last1 = Farewell | first1 = V. | last2 = Johnson | first2 = T. | doi = 10.1002/sim.3893 | title = Woods and Russell, Hill, and the emergence of medical statistics | journal = Statistics in Medicine | volume = 29 | issue = 14 | pages = 1459–1476 | year = 2010 | pmid =  20535761| pmc = 2991772}}</ref><ref>{{Cite journal | last1 = Armitage | first1 = P. | title = Obituary: Sir Austin Bradford Hill, 1897–1991 | journal = Journal of the Royal Statistical Society | volume = 154 | issue = 3 | pages = 482–484 |jstor=2983156| year = 1991 | doi = 10.1111/j.1467-985X.1991.tb00329.x | doi-access = free }}</ref>

==Early life==
Hill was born in London, son 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]].

==Career==

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.

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,<ref name="strepto">{{Cite journal | last1 = Yoshioka | first1 = A. | title = Use of randomisation in the Medical Research Council's clinical trial of streptomycin in pulmonary tuberculosis in the 1940s | doi = 10.1136/bmj.317.7167.1220 | journal = BMJ | volume = 317 | issue = 7167 | pages = 1220–1223 | year = 1998 | pmid =  9794865| pmc =1114162 }}</ref> is generally accepted as the first 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 [[prospective study|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 [[David Hume|Hume]] and [[Karl Popper|Popper]], Hill suggested several aspects of [[Causality#Biology and medicine|causality in medicine and biology]], which have remained in use by epidemiologists to date.

On Hill's death in 1991, [[Peter Armitage (statistician)|Peter Armitage]] wrote, "to anyone involved in medical statistics, [[epidemiology]] or public health, Bradford Hill was quite simply the world's leading medical statistician."

==Honours==
In 1950–52, Hill was president of the [[Royal Statistical Society]] and was awarded its [[Guy Medal]] in Gold in 1953.

Hill was made a Fellow of the [[Royal Society]] (FRS) in 1954. Fisher was actually one of the proposers. The certificate of election read
<blockquote>
Has, by the application of statistical methods, made valuable contributions to our knowledge of the incidence and aetiology of industrial diseases, of the effects of internal migration upon mortality rates, and of the natural and experimental epidemiology of various infections, for example of the risks of an attack of [[poliomyelitis]] following inoculation procedures and of the risk of congenital abnormalities being precipitated by maternal rubella in the pregnant woman. Since the war he has demonstrated in an exact and controlled field survey the association between cigarette smoking and the incidence of cancer of the lung, and has been the leader in the development in medicine of the precise experimental methods now used nationally and internationally in the evaluation of new therapeutic and [[prophylactic]] agents.
</blockquote>

He was appointed a Commander of the [[Order of the British Empire]] (CBE) in the [[1951 Birthday Honours]]<ref>{{London Gazette |date=1 June 1951 |issue= 39243| page=3071 |supp=y}}</ref> and knighted in the [[1961 Birthday Honours]].<ref>{{London Gazette |date=2 June 1961 |issue= 42370| page=4144 |supp=y}}</ref>

==Bibliography==
* "Principles of Medical Statistics" (1937) London: [[The Lancet]], 1937.
* {{Cite journal
| pmid = 14772469
| date = 1 September 1950
| last1 = Doll | first1 = R.
| last2 = Hill | first2 = A. B.
| title = Smoking and Carcinoma of the Lung
| volume = 2
| issue = 4682
| pages = 739–748
| issn = 0007-1447
| pmc = 2038856
| journal = British Medical Journal
| doi=10.1136/bmj.2.4682.739
}}
* {{Cite journal
| last1 = Doll | first1 = R.
| last2 = Hill | first2 = A. B.
| title = The mortality of doctors in relation to their smoking habits; a preliminary report
| journal = British Medical Journal
| volume = 1
| issue = 4877
| pages = 1451–1455
| year = 1954
| pmid = 13160495
| pmc = 2085438
 | doi=10.1136/bmj.1.4877.1451
}}
* {{Cite journal
| last1 = Hill | first1 = A. B.
| title = The Environment and Disease: Association or Causation?
| journal = Proceedings of the Royal Society of Medicine
| volume = 58
| issue = 5
| pages = 295–300
| year = 1965
| pmid = 14283879
| pmc = 1898525
| doi = 10.1177/003591576505800503
}} [http://www.edwardtufte.com/tufte/hill]
* {{Cite journal | last1 = Chalmers | first1 = I. | title = Fisher and Bradford Hill: Theory and pragmatism? | doi = 10.1093/ije/dyg295 | journal = International Journal of Epidemiology | volume = 32 | issue = 6 | pages = 922–924; discussion 924–8 | year = 2003 | pmid =  14681246| doi-access = free }}
* {{Cite journal | last1 = Armitage | first1 = P. | title = Fisher, Bradford Hill, and randomization | doi = 10.1093/ije/dyg286 | journal = International Journal of Epidemiology | volume = 32 | issue = 6 | pages = 925–928; discussion 928–8 | year = 2003 | pmid =  14681247| doi-access = free }}
* {{Cite journal | last1 = Doll | first1 = R. | title = Fisher and Bradford Hill: Their personal impact | doi = 10.1093/ije/dyg287 | journal = International Journal of Epidemiology | volume = 32 | issue = 6 | pages = 929–931; discussion 931–8 | year = 2003 | pmid =  14681248| doi-access = free }}
* {{Cite journal | doi = 10.1093/ije/dyg316 | title = Fisher and Bradford Hill: A discussion | journal = International Journal of Epidemiology | volume = 32 | issue = 6 | pages = 945–948 | year = 2003 | doi-access = free }}

==Notes==
{{reflist|group=lower-alpha}}

==References==
{{Reflist}}

==External links==
{{Commons category|Austin Bradford Hill}}
{{wikiquote|Austin Bradford Hill}}

* Doll has some comments on his teacher and boss in [https://web.archive.org/web/20050411023406/http://www.cancerworld.org/CancerWorld/getStaticModFile.aspx?id=269 Interview with Richard Doll]
* Photographs of Hill: [http://www.york.ac.uk/depts/maths/histstat/people/hill.gif on University of York site] [http://www.npg.org.uk/collections/search/portrait.php?search=ss&sText=austin+bradford+hill&LinkID=mp71509&rNo=0&role=sit on National Portrait Gallery site]

{{Guy Medal}}
{{Royal Statistical Society presidents}}

{{Authority control}}

{{DEFAULTSORT:Hill, Austin Bradford}}
[[Category:1897 births]]
[[Category:1991 deaths]]
[[Category:Military personnel from London]]
[[Category:Royal Air Force personnel of World War I]]
[[Category:Royal Air Force airmen]]
[[Category:People from Loughton]]
[[Category:British epidemiologists]]
[[Category:English statisticians]]
[[Category:Fellows of the Royal Society]]
[[Category:Knights Bachelor]]
[[Category:People educated at Chigwell School]]
[[Category:Presidents of the Royal Statistical Society]]
[[Category:Academics of the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine]]
[[Category:Tobacco researchers]]
[[Category:Commanders of the Order of the British Empire]]
[[Category:Medical doctors from London]]