Anthony Costello

Anthony Costello FMedSci FRCPCH FRCP (born 20 February 1953) is a British paediatrician. Until 2015 Costello was Professor of International Child Health and Director of the Institute for Global Health at the University College London. Costello is most notable for his work on improving survival among mothers and their newborn infants in poor populations of developing countries. From 2015 to 2018 he was director of maternal, child and adolescent health at the World Health Organization in Geneva.

For the urologist, see Anthony J. Costello.
Anthony Costello

FMedSci FRCPCH FRCP
Anthony Costello, taken in 2016
Born (1953-02-20) 20 February 1953
NationalityBritish
EducationSt Joseph's Academy, Blackheath
Alma materUniversity of Cambridge, Middlesex Hospital
Known forImproving the health of newborn infants and mothers in developing countries
AwardsJames Spence Medal
Scientific career
FieldsPediatrics
InstitutionsUniversity College London World Health Organization
Doctoral studentsJoy Lawn[1]
Websiteanthonycostello.net

Early life and education

Costello was born in Beckenham, and graduated from school at St Joseph's Academy, Blackheath. Costello attended St Catharine's College, Cambridge, where he was awarded a degree in Experimental Psychology and qualified as a doctor in Medical Sciences after clinical training at the Middlesex Hospital in London.[2] He then trained in Paediatrics and Neonatology at University College London. His aunt was the atheist activist Barbara Smoker.

Career and research

After living in Baglung district in western Nepal from 1984 to 1986, two days' walk from a road, he became interested in challenges to mother and child health in poor, remote populations. His areas of scientific expertise include the evaluation of cost-effective interventions to reduce maternal and newborn deaths, women's groups, strategies to tackle malnutrition, international aid and the health effects of climate change. In 1999 he published a pioneering book on how to improve newborn infant health in developing countries.[3]

With a Nepali organisation (MIRA), that he helped to establish, a large community trial of participatory learning and action using women's groups in the remote mountains of Makwanpur District, Nepal was published in The Lancet in 2004.[4] He went on to establish partnerships and further studies with local organisations in East India, Mumbai, Bangladesh and Malawi. Seven cluster randomised controlled trials of women's groups in Nepal, India, Bangladesh and Malawi, led to a meta-analysis published in the Lancet in May 2013.[5]

Results showed that in populations where more than 30% of pregnant women joined the women's group programme, maternal death and newborn deaths were cut by one third. The intervention has now been recommended by the World Health Organization (WHO) for scale-up in poor, rural populations.[6]

Costello chaired the 2009 Lancet Commission on Managing the Health Effects of Climate Change,[7] and was co-chair of a new Lancet Commission which links the UK, China, Norway and Sweden on emergency actions to tackle the climate health crisis, published in June 2015.[8]

At WHO he has helped to lead the Global Strategy for Women's, Children's and Adolescents’ Health (2016‒2030) with its three objectives of surviving, thriving and transforming – to end preventable mortality, to promote health and well-being, and to expand enabling environments. Its guiding principles include equity, universality, human rights, development effectiveness and sustainability.

With the WHO team, Costello has also launched the global accelerated action for the health of adolescents (AA-HA!) and established an expert review group called Maternal and Newborn Information for tracking Outcomes and Results (MONITOR) to harmonize maternal and newborn health indicators.

In February 2017, together with UNICEF and the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA), Costello helped to launch the Network for Improving Quality of Care for Maternal, Newborn and Child Health to introduce evidence-based interventions to improve quality of care for maternal and newborn health supported by a learning system. The Network aims to improve care in Ethiopia, Nigeria, India, Bangladesh, Malawi, Côte d'Ivoire, Uganda, Tanzania and Ghana. He also leads work on community empowerment for family health - what it means, how to measure it, and how to plan interventions at the district level.[9]

Costello is co-chair of the Lancet Countdown: Tracking Progress on Health and Climate Change.[10][11]

With UNICEF, he is helping WHO to coordinate a new Lancet Commission on redesigning child health for sustainable development goals.

In November 2018 he published the book The Social Edge. The Power of Sympathy Groups for our Health, Wealth and Sustainable Future.[12] The book explains why a new science of cooperation is needed and suggests twenty two social experiments which use sympathy groups for resolving 21st century problems.

Costello has been critical of the UK Government's response to the COVID-19 pandemic. On 16 April 2020, he told The Telegraph:

We should have introduced the lockdown two or three weeks earlier but we didn’t. It should be combined with testing, tracing and digital apps that have been used so successfully in South Korea.... It is a total mess and we have been wrong every stage of the way. We have to change our policy and at the moment I don’t hear anything to suggest we are. They keep talking about flattening the curve which implies they are seeking herd immunity but what we should have done is crushed the epidemic and then keep it down.[13]

Awards

Costello holds fellowships of the Academy of Medical Sciences and of the Royal College of Physicians. He has also received Honorary Fellowships of the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists, and of the Faculty of Public Health. In April 2011, Costello received the James Spence Medal, the highest honour of the Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health, where he is a fellow. He serves on the Board of the global Partnership for Maternal, Newborn & Child Health, chaired by Graça Machel. In May 2016, he received the BMJ Lifetime Achievement Award.[14] [15]

Personal life

Costello and his wife Helen have two sons and one daughter.[16]

References
  1. Lawn, Joy Elizabeth (2009). 4 million neonatal deaths : an analysis of available cause-of-death data and systematic country estimates with a focus on 'birth asphyxia'. ucl.ac.uk (PhD thesis). University College London. OCLC 829958629. EThOS uk.bl.ethos.564767.
  2. "International MNCA expert named as Director, WHO Department of Maternal, Newborn, Child and Adolescent Health". World Health Organization. GENEVA, SWITZERLAND: World Health Organization. Jun 2015. Retrieved 8 July 2018.
  3. 1999: Improving Newborn Infant Health in Developing Countries. Imperial and World Scientific Press. 1999
  4. Manandhar, Dharma S; Osrin, David; Shrestha, Bhim Prasad; Mesko, Natasha; Morrison, Joanna; Tumbahangphe, Kirti Man; Tamang, Suresh; Thapa, Sushma; Shrestha, Dej; Thapa, Bidur; Shrestha, Jyoti Raj; Wade, Angie; Borghi, Josephine; Standing, Hilary; Manandhar, Madan; de L Costello, Anthony M (2004). "Effect of a participatory intervention with women's groups on birth outcomes in Nepal: cluster-randomised controlled trial". The Lancet. 364 (9438): 970–979. doi:10.1016/S0140-6736(04)17021-9. ISSN 0140-6736. PMID 15364188. S2CID 4796493.
  5. Prost, Audrey; Colbourn, Tim; Seward, Nadine; Azad, Kishwar; Coomarasamy, Arri; Copas, Andrew; Houweling, Tanja A J; Fottrell, Edward; Kuddus, Abdul; Lewycka, Sonia; MacArthur, Christine; Manandhar, Dharma; Morrison, Joanna; Mwansambo, Charles; Nair, Nirmala; Nambiar, Bejoy; Osrin, David; Pagel, Christina; Phiri, Tambosi; Pulkki-Brännström, Anni-Maria; Rosato, Mikey; Skordis-Worrall, Jolene; Saville, Naomi; More, Neena Shah; Shrestha, Bhim; Tripathy, Prasanta; Wilson, Amie; Costello, Anthony (2013). "Women's groups practising participatory learning and action to improve maternal and newborn health in low-resource settings: a systematic review and meta-analysis". The Lancet. 381 (9879): 1736–1746. doi:10.1016/S0140-6736(13)60685-6. ISSN 0140-6736. PMC 3797417. PMID 23683640.
  6. 2014: WHO recommendation on community mobilization through facilitated participatory learning and action cycles with women's groups for maternal and newborn health. World Health Organization; ISBN 978 92 4 150727 1
  7. Costello, Anthony; Abbas, Mustafa; Allen, Adriana; Ball, Sarah; Bell, Sarah; Bellamy, Richard; Friel, Sharon; Groce, Nora; Johnson, Anne; Kett, Maria; Lee, Maria; Levy, Caren; Maslin, Mark; McCoy, David; McGuire, Bill; Montgomery, Hugh; Napier, David; Pagel, Christina; Patel, Jinesh; de Oliveira, Jose Antonio Puppim; Redclift, Nanneke; Rees, Hannah; Rogger, Daniel; Scott, Joanne; Stephenson, Judith; Twigg, John; Wolff, Jonathan; Patterson, Craig (2009). "Managing the health effects of climate change". The Lancet. 373 (9676): 1693–1733. doi:10.1016/S0140-6736(09)60935-1. ISSN 0140-6736. PMID 19447250. S2CID 205954939.
  8. Watts, Nick; Adger, W. Neil; Agnolucci, Paolo; Blackstock, Jason; Byass, Peter; Cai, Wenjia; Chaytor, Sarah; Colbourn, Tim; Collins, Mat; Cooper, Adam; Cox, Peter M.; Depledge, Joanna; Drummond, Paul; Ekins, Paul; Galaz, Victor; Grace, Delia; Graham, Hilary; Grubb, Michael; Haines, Andy; Hamilton, Ian; Hunter, Alasdair; Jiang, Xujia; Li, Moxuan; Kelman, Ilan; Liang, Lu; Lott, Melissa; Lowe, Robert; Luo, Yong; Mace, Georgina; Maslin, Mark; Nilsson, Maria; Oreszczyn, Tadj; Pye, Steve; Quinn, Tara; Svensdotter, My; Venevsky, Sergey; Warner, Koko; Xu, Bing; Yang, Jun; Yin, Yongyuan; Yu, Chaoqing; Zhang, Qiang; Gong, Peng; Montgomery, Hugh; Costello, Anthony (2015). "Health and climate change: policy responses to protect public health". The Lancet. 386 (10006): 1861–1914. doi:10.1016/S0140-6736(15)60854-6. hdl:10871/17695. PMID 26111439. S2CID 205979317.
  9. "Launch of Network for Improving Quality of Care for Maternal, Newborn and Child Health". Geneva, Switzerland: World Health Organization. The partnership for Maternal, Newborn and Child Health. 4 May 2017. Retrieved 8 December 2018.
  10. "Lancet Countdown: Tracking Progress on Health and Climate Change". Institute of Global Health. Project Summary: University College London. 2017-01-16. Retrieved 7 December 2018.
  11. "Lancet Countdown". Lancet Countdown. Retrieved 2019-12-03.
  12. The Social Edge. The Power of Sympathy Groups for our Health, Wealth and Sustainable Future. 2019-06-24. ASIN 1912664003.
  13. 'UK faces eight to ten waves of coronavirus before population achieves herd immunity', Telegraph, 16/4/20.
  14. Costello, Anthony (2016). "Irreverent, melancholic, dogged". BMJ. 353 (353): i3550. doi:10.1136/bmj.i3550. PMID 27358256. S2CID 35973031.
  15. "Professor Anthony Costello". EAT Forum. EAT. Retrieved 7 December 2018.
  16. Honigsbaum, Mark (2009). "Anthony Costello: making climate change part of global health". The Lancet. 373 (9676): 1669. doi:10.1016/S0140-6736(09)60929-6. PMID 19447244. S2CID 139095946.
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