Remembering Dr. Allan Best

By Roy Cameron, distinguished professor emeritus, School of Public Health Sciences
 

Dr. Allan Best, a founder of what is now the School of Public Health Sciences, died suddenly at his home in Vancouver B.C.

Dr. Allan Best led a distinguished career, making significant impacts in the development of health services and policy research in Canada, evidence-based knowledge translation, the application of systems thinking to health services redesign, and the development of Canadian health promotion research. Lauded as a thought and practice leader with an uncanny ability to identify opportunities for linkage and synergy, he balanced the role of provocateur with immense respect for those around him. 

Best completed his PhD in Clinical Psychology at Waterloo with Dr. Dick Steffy. Best was an outstanding researcher who focused on tobacco control; tobacco use was, and still is, the leading preventable cause of death worldwide. His research program encompassed smoking prevention in schools, physician intervention for smoking cessation and community intervention to accelerate quitting among heavy smokers. Most of his funding came from highly competitive National Institutes of Health programs. His work won international acclaim and had far-reaching impact. 

Part of Best’s magic was his ability to engage people across countries, institutions and disciplines, greatly enriching Waterloo’s research programs. His most longstanding collaborator was Dr. Steve Brown, a biostatistician. They enjoyed a productive collaboration from the time they met by chance in the Math building, where Best had his research space, until Best left Waterloo. Their collaboration initiated the invaluable ongoing ties between the Department of Statistics and Actuarial Science and the School of Public Health Sciences. 

As the first chair of a Department of Health Studies, created in 1978, Best played a major role in shaping the direction of the University of Waterloo. Waterloo created this department in response to the Canadian government’s 1974 Lalonde Report. That report, which was internationally influential, emphasized that the health of a population is determined primarily by factors outside the health-care system.

The aim of the new department, the first of its kind in the world, was to bring together behavioural and biological scientists to build transdisciplinary research and to train students for research and professional roles dedicated to promoting individual and population health. Best was pivotal in developing the vision and recruiting excellent faculty – people who created an extraordinary academic program.  

After launching students who had influential roles in research, health promotion policy and education, Best left the University in the early 1990s to move to a private sector position in British Columbia, then on to other influential research, leadership and consulting roles in B.C. His career path led him to become an associate member of McMaster University’s Department of Clinical Epidemiology and Biostatistics, director of Organizational Health at Wilson Banwell and Associates, president and CEO of the Tzu Chi Institute for Complementary and Alternative Medicine, senior scientist at Vancouver Coastal Health Research Institute’s Centre for Clinical Epidemiology and Evaluation, and managing director of InSource Research Group. He maintained long-standing appointments at both the University of Waterloo and the University of British Columbia. He played a pivotal role in the creation of the Canadian Association for Health Services and Policy Research, for which he served as president. 

Best’s legacy here at Waterloo is significant. His vision, dynamic personality, confidence and leadership were critical in building productive ties across this campus and with other institutions. His collaborators came from many disciplines: biostatistics, psychology, family medicine, medical geography, nursing, epidemiology, psychiatry and anthropology, to name a few. His scholarly legacy of 167 peer-reviewed publications and 298 presentations is only surpassed by his inspiring and mentoring of 16 graduate students and countless colleagues.

Waterloo’s current world-leading chronic disease prevention research programs, led by Drs. Geoff Fong, Mary Thompson, Dave Hammond, Richard Cook, Scott Leatherdale and others, evolved out of the infrastructure and track record that Best built. He set the stage for Waterloo’s global leadership in building the emerging field of population intervention science and in promoting health worldwide. 

Across personal and professional settings, Best was known as an exceptionally kind and thoughtful man who cared deeply about his impact on the world.  He took joy in getting outside and being active with friends and family and giving back to his community.   

Best was devoted to his wife, Maetel Grant, a powerhouse who had many friends at the University and in the broader community. He also loved and took great pride in their children and grandchildren. As my colleague and friend, Allan greatly enriched my own career and my life.

If you wish to make a remembrance donation in Best’s honour, please consider the following charities: West Vancouver Seniors Activity Centre, the Canadian Cancer Society, Alzheimer Society of Canada and the Heart and Stroke Foundation. A private Celebration of Life will be held in Vancouver in December.