Dame Anne Mandall Johnson DBE FMedSci (born 30 January 1954)[1] is a British epidemiologist, known for her work in public health, especially the areas of HIV, sexually transmitted infections and infectious diseases.
[5] After graduating, uncertain whether to continue with medicine, she took a gap year in South America that gave her direction for her career.
To support her increasing interest in the broader determinants of people's health, especially preventive measures to avoid the need for clinical treatments, she then undertook specialist training in epidemiology, earning a Master of Science (MSc) in Public Health and Epidemiology from the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine in 1984.
[5] Johnson is Professor of Infectious Disease Epidemiology and Chair of the Grand Challenge for Global Health at University College London.
This was initiated in the mid 1980s through a chance opportunity to take a research post at Middlesex Hospital into the early epidemiology of HIV at a time when the topic attracted considerable stigma and sexual health was a new concept.
[5] Her work on the national survey of sexual attitudes and lifestyles not only maps the extent of the HIV epidemic but also tracks changes in behaviour over time in the whole UK population.
[5] In 2006, Johnson, along with Andrew Hayward, was one of the founders of Flu Watch, designed to understand effects and transmission of influenza in the general community, rather than only among hospital patients.