Jonathan Patz, MD, MPH, is Director of the Global Health Institute at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and the John P. Holton Chair in Health and the Environment with appointments in the Nelson Institute for Environmental Studies and the Department of Population Health Sciences. For fifteen years, Patz was lead author for the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (or IPCC)—the organization that shared the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize with Al Gore. His most recent book, Climate Change and Public Health, co-edited with Barry Levy, former president of American Public Health Association (APHA), was released in 2015 from Oxford University Press.
Patz Co-chaired the health expert panel of the US National Assessment on Climate Change and was a Convening Lead Author for the United Nations/World Bank Millennium Ecosystem Assessment.
In fall 2015, Patz led a Massive Open Online Course for the UW-Madison on climate change policy and health. Patz has written over 85 peer-reviewed papers and an earlier textbook addressing the health effects of global environmental change. He has been invited to brief both houses of Congress, and served on several scientific committees of the National Academy of Sciences.
In addition to contributing to the 2007 Nobel Prize, Patz received the APHA Environmental Division’s highest award in environmental health leadership in November 2015. He also received an Aldo Leopold Leadership Fellows Award in 2005, shared the Zayed International Prize for the Environment in 2006, and earned the distinction of becoming a UW-Madison Romnes Faculty Fellow in 2009. He has earned medical board certification in both Occupational/Environmental Medicine and Family Medicine and received his medical degree from Case Western Reserve University (1987) and his Master of Public Health degree (1992) from Johns Hopkins University.
Suggested Reading:
"Ecology for Public Health," The Quarterly, 2009
"Connecting Global Warming and Health," Wisconsin Insights, 2009
For Further Inquiry:
PBS NewsHour segment: "As Global Temperatures Rise, So Too Do Health Risks"
