John Kevany: Prof John Kevany, Professor Emeritus of International Health at Trinity College Dublin, spent a lifetime working to highlight the key role of poverty as a cause of global ill-health.
Long before celebrities like Bono took up the baton on behalf of the underprivileged and dispossessed, John Kevany worked quietly to bring about change.
The Department of Community Health and General Practice at Trinity was where he spent the bulk of his professional life, first as a lecturer in social medicine and latterly as associate professor of International Health. He was one of the principal instigators of the MSc course in Community Health which began in 1979 and inspired interest and applications from those with overseas international health interests.
The course, which continues to run, is never advertised and is usually oversubscribed by a factor of three or four. Course graduates occupy senior positions in the health sector both in the Republic and internationally.
He introduced the department to health needs assessments in local communities and to community participation which was a revolutionary concept but is now recognised as a legitimate part of health planning and is incorporated into our National Health Strategy. Kevany was born in Warwickshire in 1932 and educated at Ampleforth College, Yorkshire. He graduated with a BA and MB from Trinity College Dublin in 1955. After a year working in obstetrics at the Rotunda Hospital, he became a research fellow in clinical nutrition at Vanderbilt University, Nashville, before joining the World Health Organisation regional office for the Americas.
He worked in South America and the Caribbean throughout the 1960s as regional adviser in human nutrition.This interest continued throughout his subsequent academic career in Dublin. He gained a masters in public health from Columbia University in New York in 1967.
Within the Department of Community Health and General Practice, Kevany represented the best of academic tradition by promoting the search for knowledge and at the same time catering for the needs of students. He was always willing to share and build on a huge base of knowledge and experience. Accessible and full of integrity, he helped to motivate and support departmental colleagues and students. His life was characterised by a deep understanding of the multiple causes of ill health and a commitment to bring about the changes necessary to redress inequity. In 1996, in an article in the British Medical Journal, he wrote: "The world's biggest killer and the greatest cause of ill health and suffering across the globe is extreme poverty. The effects of poverty on health are never more clearly expressed that in poor communities of the developing world . . . The scale and persistence of these problems is a blunt reminder of an international obligation ignored."
In 1984 he took leave of absence from Trinity to work for two years as a public health specialist with the World Bank and the International Development Agency. This involved working and travelling in Bangladesh, Ethiopia and other parts of South East Asia and Africa. After returning to Ireland, he continued to advise both the World Health Organisation and the World Bank.
The period coming up to Kevany's retirement coincided with the Government's commitment to increase its allocation to official development assistance. Over the last five years of his life he was hugely influential in helping to shape the Republic's policies in the field of public health and HIV/AIDS. The Ireland Aid programme of the Department of Foreign Affairs spent €50 million last year on HIV/AIDS programmes, guided by a policy framework to which Kevany had greatly contributed.
A fly fisherman for whom the catching of fish was incidental, John was devoted to his wife and family. He loved Trinity and its many foibles and was proud to be a college fellow. In his diary he had pasted Clement Atlee's joke: A man at Speaker's Corner was saying: "When the day of freedom dawns, you will ride in them Rolls!" Someone in the crowd said: "I don't want to live in them houses or ride in them Rolls!" And the speaker said: "When the day of Freedom dawns, brother, you'll do as you are damn well told."
He is survived by his wife Rose, daughters Sophie, Seana and Sabrina, son Sebastian and step-son Peter.