James C. Anthony, MSc, PhD

James C. (Jim) Anthony, Ph.D. earned his bachelor's degree from Carleton College in 1971. His M.Sc. (1975) and Ph.D. (1977) are from the University of Minnesota Graduate School in a degree program that combined pharmacy sciences and epidemiology (advisors: A. Wertheimer; L. Schuman). In 1977-78, an NIMH postdoctoral research fellowship award allowed him to study biostatistics (M. Kramer), psychiatric epidemiology (E. Gruenberg), and psychopathology (P. McHugh, M.Folstein) at Johns Hopkins Schools of Hygiene & Public Health and Medicine.

His first and second academic appointments were as an Instructor at the University of Minnesota College of Pharmacy (1972-77), and as an Assistant Professor and Associate Professor at Johns Hopkins University School of Hygiene and Public Health (1978-89), with appointments in the departments of mental hygiene and also in epidemiology. After 11 years, he earned promotion to tenured Professor at Johns Hopkins, where he worked full-time until late in 2003, with his primary appointment in Public Health and an Adjunct Professor appointment in the School of Medicine Department of Psychiatry & Behavioral Sciences. He has a continuing appointment as Adjunct Professor at JHU. 

In 2003 he transferred his primary academic appointments, research, and research training programs to Michigan State University, where he serves as tenured professor of epidemiology & biostatistics in the MSU College of Human Medicine. He also served as chairman of the medical school's Department of Epidemiology from October 2003 through December 2008. In 2006, he was awarded the title of "Profesor Honorario" by Universidad Peruana Cayetano Heredia (UPCH) in Lima, Peru, for his contributions to development of that university's public health research training program and research in neuropsychiatric and drug dependence epidemiology. 

His research accomplishments appear in more than 300 published articles and books, and have been recognized in awards and honors, including designation as a "highly influential" contributor to the research literature of "psychology/psychiatry" and "general social sciences," based on epidemiological studies of neuropsychiatric and other behavioral disturbances (www.isihighlycited.com). He has been elected to serve as President of the Alpha Chapter of the Delta Omega Society, the premier public health honors society in the world, as chairman of the Section of Epidemiology and Public Health of the World Psychiatric Association, and as a member of the Board of Directors for the College on Problems of Drug Dependence. He is an elected Fellow of the American College of Neuropsychopharmacology, of the College on Problems of Drug Dependence, and of the American Psychopathological Association. His other elected and voluntary memberships include Society of Epidemiologic Research (since 1977), American Association for the Advancement of Science (since 1977), American Public Health Association (since 1977), and the American Epidemiological Association (since 2005).

He is an NIH Senior Scientist awardee, with a K05 Senior Scientist award to support his research and mentorship activities, as well as continuous NIH R01 award support since the early 1980s, and he has been founding director for two NIH-funded drug dependence epidemiology training programs, one for US citizens (now with more than 20 years of funding) and one for epidemiologists from overseas (now in its 13th year of funding, with a South American base at UPCH in Lima, Peru). He maintains a focused attention on the research career development of new investigators, and more than a dozen of his trainees have become NIH principal investigators, including one who has become a recipient of the Presidential Early Career Award for Scientists and Engineers and another with a NIDA MERIT award.

In 2006 he received the prestigious Mentor Award from the College on Problems of Drug Dependence. In June 2009, he received the NIDA International Programs Award of Excellence for Mentoring for his "contributions as a mentor to NIDA-supported research trainees from overseas, exceptional guidance to help NIDA fellows achieve research independence, and his leadership in NIDA's efforts to develop an international community of scientists who exchange information and collaborate on drug abuse research nationally, regionally, and globally." In October 2009, he received the National Hispanic Science Network’s National Award for Excellence in Mentorship, which recognizes a senior investigator who has provided outstanding mentorship in the area of Hispanic drug abuse to Hispanic graduate students and new investigators, resulting in peer-reviewed publications or successful grant applications. In 2011, his NIH/NIDA K05 Senior Scientist and Mentorship Award was renewed to support his research and mentoring activities through 2016, and he received a new five year NIH/NIDA R25 Science Education Award for a new National Hispanic Science Network Early Stage Career Mentoring Initiative that he developed with professorial colleagues at the University of Texas, El Paso, and the University of Miami. These NIH awards help support his efforts to encourage research career development of US and overseas scientists who are trying to reduce hazards associated with drug use through new public health prevention, outreach, and early intervention initiatives. 

Jim was honored by invitations for plenary lectures on 'enviromics' topics at recent meetings of the International Federation of Psychiatric Epidemiology, the World Psychiatric Association Section of Epidemiology and Public Health, and most recently at the Society of Epidemiologic Research annual meeting in Boston during June 2013. The 'envirome' is a concept akin to the genome. Originally formulated for an Epidemiologic Reviews overview of future research in psychiatric epidemiology, the envirome was conceptualized as the total ensemble of environmental conditions and processes required for life form viability, in deliberate complement with an analogous concept for the genome that encompasses the total ensemble of genetic material required for life form viability (Anthony et al., Epidemiologic Reviews, 1995; http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Envirome). Jim distinguishes the envirome from the 'exposome' by drawing attention to behavioral choice processes that lead potentially susceptible human hosts into potentially noxious or healthy environments, as distinct from what might be regarded as a more passive role for human hosts who face unchosen 'exposures' (e.g., to disease-causing infective agents, irradiation, or other abnormal energy exchanges, pesticides in food, natural disasters or individually experienced traumas resulting from assaultive violence, and toxic work or home environments).

Recent honors and awards include: (1) election to the Johns Hopkins Society of Scholars in February 2014. The Society of Scholars recognizes former Johns Hopkins postdoctoral fellows who have "gained marked distinction in their fields of physical, biological, medical, social or engineering sciences or in the humanities and for whom at least five years have elapsed since their last John Hopkins affiliation" (http://web.jhu.edu/administration/provost/SOS). (2) Selection, in 2016, for the 2016 Rema Lapouse Award of the American Public Health Association , which recognizes "outstanding scientists in the area of psychiatric epidemiology in recognition of significant contributions to the scientific understanding of the epidemiology and control of mental disorders." (3) Selection by the National Hispanic Science Network for its 2016 National Award of Excellence in Research by a Senior Investigator. (4) Selection in 2018 for the William J. Beal Outstanding Faculty Award for Total Service to Michigan State University.

In 2022, the Society for Prevention Research selected Jim to receive the SPR Presidential Award. It is a 'lifetime achievement' award for a significant body of research or theory in any area related to prevention and it recognizes an individual who has had a major impact on the field.

https://www.preventionresearch.org/about-spr/awards/2022-awards-presentation/

  

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