International Epidemiological Association

The records include minutes and other organisational and business records; corporate records; membership directories and some photographs; general and Officer's correspondence; printed books, conference programmes, proceedings and abstracts.

Most of the IEA's organisational and business records are in paper format up to 1995; International and some Regional conference programmes and abstracts are available up to 2006; printed material, including books, is available to 1991.

1956-2006

24 boxes

The IEA's co-founder John Pemberton acted as the Association's first archivist from 1977 to 1987. His accumulation and order of the IEA records has been followed, as far as possible, in the arrangement of the archive.

The archive is arranged in six sections as follows:

A/ Organisational Records 1956-1995;

B/ Business Records 1957-1995;

C/ Correspondence 1965-1992;

D/ Educational Programme 1957-2006;

E/ Liaison and Collaboration 1961-1994;

F/ Publications 1958-2006.

Archive transferred to the library at Wellcome Collection in 1994, with further material added chronologically in November 2003, November 2004, February 2005, February 2007, August 2009, and April 2012

The International Epidemiological Association was founded in 1954 by Dr. John Pemberton (Sheffield, UK) and Dr. Harold Willard (Cornell University, NY, USA) as the British section of the International Corresponding Club (ICC). The founding aims of the organisation are to facilitate communication amongst those engaged in research and teaching of epidemiology throughout the world, and to encourage its use in all fields of health including social, community and preventive medicine. These aims are to be achieved by holding Scientific meetings, seminars and workshops; by publication of journals, reports, monographs and books; and by other membership activities and contact.

The first formal meeting of the ICC was held in London, 1956 and the first International Scientific Meeting (ISM) in the Netherlands in 1957. At this meeting, a Constitution was formed, Terms of Reference agreed and the first Executive Committee elected. Founding members included many eminent and internationally reknown epidemiologists, including Richard Doll, Roy Acheson, Alice Stewart, Robert Cruikshank (the IEA's first Chairman), Archibald Cochrane. Many of these individuals, concerned with the close relationship between poverty and ill-health, had been active in promoting "social and preventive medicine" research and its application to non-communicable disease(s) since the 1930s, and had founded or been involved with associations with shared aims and objectives. The Socialist Medical Association (SMA), founded in 1930, included members Richard Doll and John Pemberton, and significantly influenced health policy in the 1940s, culminating in the establishment of the National Health Service in 1948. Several members of the SMA, including John Pemberton, then co-founded the UK Society for Social Medicine (SSM), also in 1956, with Alice Stewart, Herbert Joules, W.E. (Jerry) Jessop and Richard Doll; its inaugral meeting was initiated by and consisted of all but one of the British members of the ICC. The ICC further sought to build a broader, cross-national membership, to promote epidemiology specifically in non-Western countries.

The ICC was renamed the International Epidemiological Club in 1958 before being finally renamed the International Epidemiological Association (IEA) in 1959.

The IEA was affiliated to the World Health Organisation (WHO) as a Non-Governmental Organisation (NGO) in 1966, and incorporated in 1967.

The general organisation and control of the IEA is vested in the Council and Executive Committee, elected by members every three years at the triennial ISM. Membership includes annual subscription to theInternational Journal of Epidemiology (IJE), now published bi-monthly. Members are accepted irrespective of race, religion, sex, political affiliation or country of residence, and membership is now available to Regional associations and groups of individuals in developing and resource-poor countries at reduced rate(s).

Established in 1954 as a small study group of 26 members, mostly from the UK and USA, working in the emerging field of social and preventive medicine, the IEA is now (February 2010) a large organisation of over 1000 members in over 100 countries. It is the only international organisation that brings epidemiologists together from all parts of the world, and has played a key role in the history of epidemiology and public health, and in the development of evidence-based medicine in clinical practice and in healthcare planning and service delivery.

For further information regarding the IEA and its current activities, including the Triennial Report, see their website:

Main IEA site: www.ieaweb.org

European IEA site: www.iea-europe.org

Archived website

This organisation's website has been archived as part of the work of the UK Web Archiving Consortium (UKWAC) and can be consulted here: http://www.webarchive.org.uk/ukwa/target/108823.

At Wellcome Collection:

The personal papers of Richard Doll (reference PP/DOL).

The papers of the Society for Social Medicine (reference SA/SSM).

This collection has been partially catalogued and the catalogued part is available to library members. Some items have access restrictions which are explained in the item-level catalogue records. Requests to view uncatalogued material are considered on a case by case basis. Please contact collections@wellcomecollection.org for more details.

The following is an interim description of material that has been acquired since this collection was catalogued. This description may change when cataloguing takes place in future:

1 file and 4 CDs received August 2009 (acc. 1680), consisting of: Newsletters 2005-2009, conference programmes and some correspondence relating to accounts for the publication of the International Journal of Epidemiology; and 4 CDs containing electronic scans of material from the archive.

1 CD received August 2010 (acc. 1755), consisting of: Electronic copies of Council and Executive Minutes and other papers, 1956-2009.

Half a box of papers and 1 CD received April 2012 (acc. 1897), consisting of: Programmes and abstracts of meetings, 2007-2011, newsletter 2011, obituary of John Pemberton, 2010; and CD of Executive and Council papers, 1956-2011.

John Pemberton, IEA co-founder, was the Association's first archivist, appointed in 1977. On his retirement in 1987, Roy Acheson (founder member and Education Secretary) became the archivist until 1990, when Charles Florey (past editor of IJE and IEA President 1999-2002) was appointed to the role.

Until 1990, the records of the IEA were kept at the King's Fund Centre, 126 Albert Street, London NW1 7NF, but maintained by the archivist. The records were transferred to the Wellcome Library in 1994.