Epic Measures: One Doctor, Seven Billion Patients

Science writer Smith (Growing a Garden City) deftly blends the biography of remarkable doctor and economist Christopher Murray with a history of his greatest public health project: the Global Burden of Disease studies that chart “the entire burden of disease for every place and every person on Earth.” Smith notes the life events that put Murray on the path to his groundbreaking study: a childhood fascination with maps; family travels to Africa, where his parents ran a small hospital; a stellar academic career at Harvard; a Rhodes Scholarship to Oxford; a bitter experience at the World Health Organization; and a lifelong collaboration with health statistician Alan Lopez on creating the Global Burden formula and conducting fascinating studies. Funding from billionaire philanthropist Bill Gates helped launch the Global Burden project, and in 2012, a successful “prepublication presentation” was made in Seattle. Smith’s thoughtful, data-dense material is ideal for students of public health policy, who will appreciate why one public health specialist called Murray and Lopez’s work “epic squared,” but he also makes Murray’s relentless search for a way to understand the human health condition into an inspirational tale for everyone. [em]Agent: Michelle Tessler, Tessler Literary Agency. (Apr.) [/em]