Professor mike daube biography
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And he worked to secure passage of the WA Tobacco Control Act (1990), which further restricted tobacco promotions, and established the WA Health Promotion Foundation.
WA’s hosting of the seventh World Conference on Smoking and Health in 1990—the first and only to be held in Australia—was a testament to Daube’s abilities to bridge science, advocacy, and politics.
He recently completed two terms as President of the Public Health Association of Australia, and is President of the WA Branch and convenor of the Alcohol Special Interest Group.
From 2001-05 he was Western Australia's first Director General of Health and Chair of the National Public Health Partnership.
Current CEO of Cancer Council Victoria Todd Harper attributes this skill to Daube considering issues “in a broader paradigm. But in one estimation, its actions were “pretty low key”.
Thomas J. Kehoe and colleagues*
*Other contributors listed at end of the article.
August 2024 marks 40 years since Professor Mike Daube AO started work in the Western Australia Department of Health, in Australia.
He has worked on tobacco since 1973 when he was the first full-time Director of ASH (Action on Smoking and Health) in the UK. He has held senior positions in government, including Director General of Health for Western Australia and Chair of the National Public Health Partnership, and has been a leading figure in national and international action and research on tobacco, alcohol, gambling and other public health issues for several decades.
But as Daube’s long-time compatriot, former CEO of Cancer Council Victoria and President of the Union for International Cancer Control (UICC) David Hill reflects, convincing the government to adopt the policy exemplified Daube’s “modus operandi”. He courted controversy to stoke media interest. In 1983, he was recruited for his “dream job” heading the British Government’s Health Education Council, which would have allowed him to “run campaigns nationally”.
He sees, for example, how alcohol, tobacco, and gambling are connected, as are the people and policy levers to address them”.
Daube’s approach draws on his experience in advocacy, academia, and government, the roots of which colleague Simon Chapman finds in his early career: “Mike has an enormous intellect and a sophisticated understanding and instinct about politics and the policy process.” Daube grew up in Cambridge and Oxford.
As one of the world’s first anti-smoking organisations, ASH was virtually alone in this effort.
These circumstances compelled Daube to become a savvy stakeholder influencer and user of the media. To date, twenty-three countries have since enacted the policy.
Developing a successful modus operandi
Many advocates and policymakers deserve credit for plain packaging.
Before this he was a Senior Lecturer in the Department of Community Medicine at Edinburgh University, and described editorially in the British Medical Journal as "probably Britain's leading health campaigner."
He has been a regular keynote speaker at national and international conferences, has published widely on health and social policy issues, and has been a consultant for the World Health Organization, the International Union against Cancer, Bloomberg Philanthropies, and governments and NGOs in some 30 countries.
He has received awards for his work from the World Health Organization, the Public Health Association of Australia, the Australian Medical Association, Curtin University, the Heart Foundation, ACOSH, Healthway, the Global Flour Fortification Initiative, and the Thoracic Society of Australia and New Zealand, has been an Australian Red Cross Ambassador and is a White Ribbon Ambassador and a Count Me in Ambassador.
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But courageously, the Gillard government legislated plain packaging in 2011, implemented from 1 December 2012.It is an opportune time to acknowledge his continuing and tireless contribution to international tobacco control over more than 50 years.
His role in the adoption of the world’s first plain packaging legislation in Australia is just one but a telling indicator of the scope of that contribution.
Passing plain packaging in Australia
By the late 2000s, Australia was already a world leader in tobacco control.
Tobacco advertising, sponsorship and promotions were all but completely banned, and tobacco taxes were increasing. As a result, many tobacco control advocates saw it as politically impossible.
But it had never been defeated in Australia, which was partly due to Daube’s understanding the importance of policy-relevant evidence.
This approach underpinned a number of influential reports such as the 1976 UICC report, Guidelines on Smoking Control and the 1979 WHO strategy document, Controlling the Smoking Epidemic.
A move to Australia
Following ASH, Daube joined the University of Edinburgh, beginning an academic career to which he would periodically return over the next 40 years.
Through a decades-long career, Daube acquired an astonishing ability to advance health agendas by rallying key people. And his legacy still influences the fight for tobacco control. And therefore, “You had your St. George and the dragon scenario”.
Daube led ASH until 1978, and in Chapman’s view, he “in many ways set the pace for global tobacco control” during that time.
“The tactics Mike [Daube] pioneered guide Quit’s advocacy today”, says Director of Quit Victoria Rachael Anderson, “especially as we move to tackle e-cigarettes”.
Daube also helps guide a new generation of advocates and academics.