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George Patton: global leader in adolescent health
Perspectives
“What’s a guy like you doing in a place like this?”, asked a criminologist to George Patton at a meeting on reengagement for young offenders in Melbourne, Australia, 15 years ago. The colleague was referring to Patton’s background in clinical psychiatry and epidemiology, and his work at the Royal Children’s Hospital Melbourne. Today, Patton is a Professorial Fellow in Adolescent Health Research at the University of Melbourne and the nearby Murdoch Childrens Research Institute, and his eclectic professional positions have been an asset in his role as Chair of the Lancet Commission on adolescent health and wellbeing. Patton had no grand plan for a career in health. He entered medical school in Melbourne “largely because my parents thought it would be a good thing to do”, he says. Taking an opportunity to work overseas, London became Patton’s home in the 1980s, where he first joined a psychiatry rotation at the Royal Free Hospital, home to a centre of excellence in anorexia nervosa led by Tony Wakeling. Varied posts followed, including stints in student health, the drug and alcohol dependency unit at the Maudsley Hospital, and an introduction to psychoanalysis at the Tavistock Clinic. “All these posts gave me a sense of how adolescence and young adulthood could be a time of enormous flux in health and emotional development”, Patton says. Back at the Royal Free, Patton met Anthony Mann, who introduced him to epidemiological research. Mann, Emeritus Professor of Epidemiological Psychiatry at King’s College London, recalls how “I was able to introduce George to the epidemiological approach, supervising his doctorate on the outcome of abnormal eating patterns in a cohort of local schoolgirls. As a result, he learned the practical difficulties in engaging adolescents in data collection. He has obtained regular funding and provided leadership for over 20 years for this study, authoring leading publications on mood disorder and substance abuse in this age group.” For Patton it was when “my eyes were opened to how common and yet transient most eating disorders were, and how relationships with peers, parents, and teachers mattered a great deal in determining their outcome. I was left with a sense of both the opportunities and risks that arise during adolescence.” In 1989, Patton was a Visiting Research Fellow at the Central Institute of Mental Health in Mannheim, Germany, where he worked under Heinz Häfner on the early signs of schizophrenia, an experience that left him wondering about patterns of brain development in adolescence. It was also when the Berlin Wall came down, “a monumental moment that left me reflecting on the political forces that ultimately shape our lives”, he recalls. Back in London, and a junior consultant, he found himself without a clear fit into academic niches, so headed home to Australia with his young family.
Fortuitously, his return to Australia coincided with the creation of the Centre for Adolescent Health in Melbourne, which he joined in 1992, his professional home ever since. Initially focused on clinical work, Patton helped create an adolescent health research team, and established the Victorian Adolescent Health Cohort Study. “A principal question for this project was how experiences in adolescence affect health, wellbeing, and social adjustment both during these years and later adulthood”, Patton says. It led to the Victorian Intergenerational Health Cohort Study, a preconception cohort of the effects of adolescent and young adult health and health risk on later maternal health and child development, the first study of its kind. Patton’s appointment as Professor and Director of the Centre for Adolescent Health in 1998 was a catalyst for his work in global health. He joined WHO’s Technical Steering Committee on Maternal, Newborn, Child and Adolescent Health in 2003, giving him an insight of how neglected adolescence was in the wider global health context. “Growing the people, partnerships, and technical systems to bring visibility to adolescents, their health, and their potential became a focus for me”, he says. “Working with a wide range of international agencies in global health clarified in my mind how interest in adolescent health was high in many places, but a lack of coordination and critical mass in any one place was limiting progress.” In his domestic work, Patton turned to the influence of schools on adolescent health and wellbeing. His recognition that adolescents spend close to half their waking hours in school led to a realisation that relationships with teachers and peers were likely to be formative for many aspects of health and emotional adjustment, highlighted in Patton’s leadership of the Gatehouse Project from 1996 to 2010. In 2003, Patton devoted himself to full-time research. A Senior Principal Research Fellowship from Australia’s National Health and Medical Research Council allowed him to extend his research to areas including pubertal influences on health and emotional wellbeing, health service delivery for adolescents, and work on global data systems for adolescents. Last year, the UN launched the Global Strategy for Women’s, Children’s and Adolescents’ Health, and Patton is still getting used to the new recognition and status of his field. “This is an extraordinary opportunity for global health as we are talking about close to 30% of the world’s population. Investment in the health and wellbeing of today’s adolescents will generate benefits that will continue across the rest of their lives…With the current attention of the international development community, it really is a remarkable time to be working in adolescent health”, he says.
The Royal Children’s Hospital Melbourne/ Photographer Alvin Aquino
Profile George Patton: global leader in adolescent health
Published Online May 9 date, 2016 http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/ S0140-6736(16)30465-2 See Online/The Lancet Commissions http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/ S0140-6736(16)00579-1
Richard Lane
www.thelancet.com Published online May 9, 2016 http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/S0140-6736(16)30465-2
1
“What’s a guy like you doing in a place like this?”, asked a criminologist to George Patton at a meeting on reengagement for young offenders in Melbourne, Australia, 15 years ago. The colleague was referring to Patton’s background in clinical psychiatry and epidemiology, and his work at the Royal Children’s Hospital Melbourne. Today, Patton is a Professorial Fellow in Adolescent Health Research at the University of Melbourne and the nearby Murdoch Childrens Research Institute, and his eclectic professional positions have been an asset in his role as Chair of the Lancet Commission on adolescent health and wellbeing. Patton had no grand plan for a career in health. He entered medical school in Melbourne “largely because my parents thought it would be a good thing to do”, he says. Taking an opportunity to work overseas, London became Patton’s home in the 1980s, where he first joined a psychiatry rotation at the Royal Free Hospital, home to a centre of excellence in anorexia nervosa led by Tony Wakeling. Varied posts followed, including stints in student health, the drug and alcohol dependency unit at the Maudsley Hospital, and an introduction to psychoanalysis at the Tavistock Clinic. “All these posts gave me a sense of how adolescence and young adulthood could be a time of enormous flux in health and emotional development”, Patton says. Back at the Royal Free, Patton met Anthony Mann, who introduced him to epidemiological research. Mann, Emeritus Professor of Epidemiological Psychiatry at King’s College London, recalls how “I was able to introduce George to the epidemiological approach, supervising his doctorate on the outcome of abnormal eating patterns in a cohort of local schoolgirls. As a result, he learned the practical difficulties in engaging adolescents in data collection. He has obtained regular funding and provided leadership for over 20 years for this study, authoring leading publications on mood disorder and substance abuse in this age group.” For Patton it was when “my eyes were opened to how common and yet transient most eating disorders were, and how relationships with peers, parents, and teachers mattered a great deal in determining their outcome. I was left with a sense of both the opportunities and risks that arise during adolescence.” In 1989, Patton was a Visiting Research Fellow at the Central Institute of Mental Health in Mannheim, Germany, where he worked under Heinz Häfner on the early signs of schizophrenia, an experience that left him wondering about patterns of brain development in adolescence. It was also when the Berlin Wall came down, “a monumental moment that left me reflecting on the political forces that ultimately shape our lives”, he recalls. Back in London, and a junior consultant, he found himself without a clear fit into academic niches, so headed home to Australia with his young family.
Fortuitously, his return to Australia coincided with the creation of the Centre for Adolescent Health in Melbourne, which he joined in 1992, his professional home ever since. Initially focused on clinical work, Patton helped create an adolescent health research team, and established the Victorian Adolescent Health Cohort Study. “A principal question for this project was how experiences in adolescence affect health, wellbeing, and social adjustment both during these years and later adulthood”, Patton says. It led to the Victorian Intergenerational Health Cohort Study, a preconception cohort of the effects of adolescent and young adult health and health risk on later maternal health and child development, the first study of its kind. Patton’s appointment as Professor and Director of the Centre for Adolescent Health in 1998 was a catalyst for his work in global health. He joined WHO’s Technical Steering Committee on Maternal, Newborn, Child and Adolescent Health in 2003, giving him an insight of how neglected adolescence was in the wider global health context. “Growing the people, partnerships, and technical systems to bring visibility to adolescents, their health, and their potential became a focus for me”, he says. “Working with a wide range of international agencies in global health clarified in my mind how interest in adolescent health was high in many places, but a lack of coordination and critical mass in any one place was limiting progress.” In his domestic work, Patton turned to the influence of schools on adolescent health and wellbeing. His recognition that adolescents spend close to half their waking hours in school led to a realisation that relationships with teachers and peers were likely to be formative for many aspects of health and emotional adjustment, highlighted in Patton’s leadership of the Gatehouse Project from 1996 to 2010. In 2003, Patton devoted himself to full-time research. A Senior Principal Research Fellowship from Australia’s National Health and Medical Research Council allowed him to extend his research to areas including pubertal influences on health and emotional wellbeing, health service delivery for adolescents, and work on global data systems for adolescents. Last year, the UN launched the Global Strategy for Women’s, Children’s and Adolescents’ Health, and Patton is still getting used to the new recognition and status of his field. “This is an extraordinary opportunity for global health as we are talking about close to 30% of the world’s population. Investment in the health and wellbeing of today’s adolescents will generate benefits that will continue across the rest of their lives…With the current attention of the international development community, it really is a remarkable time to be working in adolescent health”, he says.
The Royal Children’s Hospital Melbourne/ Photographer Alvin Aquino
Profile George Patton: global leader in adolescent health
Published Online May 9 date, 2016 http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/ S0140-6736(16)30465-2 See Online/The Lancet Commissions http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/ S0140-6736(16)00579-1
Richard Lane
www.thelancet.com Published online May 9, 2016 http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/S0140-6736(16)30465-2
1