Rob Anderson, Associate Professor of Health Economics and Evaluation, was one of the authors to win first prize in the Public Health category of the 2017 BMA Medical Book Awards on Monday night.
The prize was awarded for their undergraduate medical textbook, Public Health and Epidemiology at a Glance (2nd edition).
Professor Anderson co-authored the book along with Dr Margaret Somerville and Dr K Kumaran. He said he was “totally surprised” for their book to have won amid such a high calibre of shortlisted books.
“Many of the examples we used in the book drew directly from the research-inspired teaching and real connections to public health policy-making and the NHS in the South West that have always exemplified the training of new doctors in Exeter.”
The prize was announced at a ceremony at BMA House in London and presented by the current president of the British Medical Association, Professor Sir John Temple. The annual awards exist to recognise outstanding contributions to medical literature. The selection process involves more than 400 expert volunteer reviewers and members of key BMA committees. This year, 600 books were nominated by publishers or authors across the 20 categories of the awards.
Dr Margaret Somerville, who led the team of authors, is a former senior lecturer at the Peninsula College of Medicine and Dentistry. She said the book was designed to be relevant to medical students in a changing healthcare environment. She said:
“We felt it was vital to be up to date with what doctors needed to know for the future, which meant we included areas not necessarily seen as public health – such as the growing importance of evidence-based medicine and health economics, where the Medical School has national and international expertise.”
The book is available to buy from Wiley-Blackwell.
Anderson R, Kumaran K, Somerville M. Public Health and Epidemiology at a Glance (2nd edition). Wiley-Blackwell 2016 ISBN: 9781118999325