Dr Judith Mackay SBS, OBE, JP, FRCP (Edin), FRCP (Lon) is a medical graduate from the University of Edinburgh. She has lived in Hong Kong since 1967, initially working as a hospital physician, then since 1984 concentrating on public health, especially tobacco control.
She is Senior Advisor, World Lung Foundation; Senior Policy Advisor to World Health Organisation and Director of the Asian Consultancy on Tobacco Control.
Judith’s particular interest is tobacco control in low-income countries, and tobacco and women. She has developed extensive experience in working with national governments and health organizations in Asia in developing comprehensive tobacco control policies.
She has published 180 academic papers and addressed over 400 conferences world‑wide. She has authored or co-authored several atlases: The State of Health Atlas, The Penguin Atlas of Human Sexual Behavior, The Tobacco Atlas, The Atlas of Heart Disease and Stroke,The Cancer Atlas, Global Tobacco Surveillance: GTSS Atlas, and The Atlas of Oral Health.
Judith has received the WHO Commemorative Medal, the APACT Presidential and Founding International Achievement Award, and national awards from Hong Kong (the Silver Bauhinia Star); the United Kingdom (MBE, then OBE); the United States of America (the US Surgeon General's Medallion), Thailand (the King's Royal Award: Commander of the Most Admirable Order of Direkgunabhorn); and China. From the USA in 2000, she received the Luther Terry Award for Outstanding Individual Leadership, and the “Fries” Prize.
In 2006, she received the INWAT (International Network of Women Against Tobacco) Lifetime Achievement Award and she was also selected by Time Magazine as one of 60 Asian Heroes from the previous 60 years; in 2007 selected as one of the Time 100 World’s Most Influential People, and in 2009 received the first-ever British Medical Journal Group Lifetime Achievement Award.
