Leadership Achievement Award

The Professor Kazue K. McLaren Leadership Achievement Award

The Professor Kazue K. McLaren Leadership Achievement Award is presented to individuals who have demonstrated outstanding leadership in promoting the quality of life and health of the peoples in communities of their nations or region.

An important aspect of their efforts have been to promote the goals of Child Survival and Health for All movements and ensuring the distribution of health services reach the unreached, stimulating intersectoral coordination and health partnership, and importing academic quality in schools of public health and departments of community medicine. More so, their work reflects the spirit and philosophy of the person in whose name this award was established.

The Professor K. McLaren Award of the Asia-Pacific Academic Consortium for Public Health was created to honour the work of the late Professor Kazue Kimura McLaren, who made significant contributions to the advancement of public health throughout her 46-year record of service as a distinguished member of the Asia-Pacific public health community.

For 30 years, Professor McLaren served as a member of the Hawaii State Department of Health, rising to the position of Chief of Public Health Nursing. Having completed that period of service, she joined the School of Public Health, University of Hawaii, in 1975 as a member of the International Health faculty where she developed innovative teaching programs in Hawaii, Asia, and the Pacific Basin, with a focus on public health management, primary health care and health leadership.

In 1979 she assumed responsibilities for initiating a Special Educational Opportunity Program at the School to provide access to graduate training in public health for underserved ethnic populations. Herself a member of a minority, as a Japanese American, she had a spirit of personal understanding in instituting programs, which assisted hundreds of people from Micronesia, the Native American Indian and Alaska Native Communities, Native Hawaiians and other minorities to achieve their graduate credentials in public health.

Professor McLaren was one of the founders of the Asia-Pacific Academic Consortium for Public Health. She served as its first Program Officer on the University of Hawaii faculty to direct, in concert with the Secretary-General of the Consortium, the operational phases of this union of public health faculties across Asia and the Pacific. Her dedication, spirit of willingness, her understanding, her innovative nature and her constant willingness to serve in extraordinary ways endeared her to all members of her chosen profession. Her spirit continues to energise the Consortium in carrying out its mission to enhance professional education for public health.

Recipients of the Prof. Kazue K McLaren Leadership Achievement Award

  1. Dr Mya Tu, Director, Health Systems Infrastructure Division, South East Asia Regional Office, World Health Organisation, 19 January 1988 at Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia
  2. Dr Siti Hasmah Bte Haji Mohd Ali, Malaysia, 21 January 1988 at Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia
  3. Dr Adhyatma, Minister of Health, Government of Indonesia, 5 December 1988 at Jakarta, Indonesia
  4. Dr Antonio N Acosta, Deputy Minister of Health, Republic of the Phillippines, 12 December 1989 at Bangkok, Thailand
  5. Dr Sumedha Khanna, WHO Representative to Indonesia, 11 July 1990 at Singapore
  6. Prof. Mathura Prasad Shrestha, Minister of Health, Kingdom of Nepal, 13 December 1990 at Kathmandu, Nepal
  7. Dr Sheridan L Weinstein, Assistant Surgeon General, US Public Health Service & Regional Director, Public Health Service, San Francisco, 26 May 1991 at Honolulu, Hawaii, USA
  8. UNICEF East Asia and Pacific Regional Office, Bangkok, Thailand, 7 December 1991 at Bangkok, Thailand
  9. Prof Debhanom Muangman, Dean, Faculty of Public Health, Mahidol University, Bangkok, Thailand, 23 May 1992, at Okinawa, Japan
  10. Dr Sydney Sax (retired), Adelaide, Australia, 15 December 1992 at Perth, Australia
  11. Dr E Hyock Kwon, President, National Academy of Sciences, Korea, 19 May 1993 at Seoul, Korea
  12. Dr U Ko Ko, Director, WHO SEARO, New Delhi, India, 19 December 1993 at Bangkok, Thailand
  13. Dr Yien-Si Tsiang, Senior Advisor to the President, Office of the President of ROC, 14 December 1995 at Taipei, Taiwan
  14. Tan Sri Dato’ Dr Abu Bakar Suleiman, Director-General, Ministry of Health, Malaysia, 15 July 1996 at Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia
  15. Dr Paul Whelton, Dean, School of Public Health and Tropical Medicine, 13 December 1998 at New Orleans, USA
  16. Prof S.H. Lee, Director, School of Public Health, 22 March 2000 at New Territories, Hong Kong.
  17. Prof II Sun Kim, Professor, Yonsei University, 17th April at Yonsei University, Seoul Korea.
  18. Prof Anuar Zaini Md. Zain, Vice-Chancellor, University of Malaya, 18th July 2002 at Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.
  19. The World Health Organisation, Dr Lee Jong-Wook (Director-General), Dr Shigeru Omi (Regional Director – WPRO), Dr Henk Bekdam (Country Representative, China), 22nd October 2003 at Shanghai, People’s Republic of China.
  20. Vice Premier Wu Yi, People’s Republic of China, 22nd October 2003 at Shanghai, People’s Republic of China.
  21. Hon Dr Basil Hetzel AC, Chairman Emeritus, International Council for Control of Iodine Deficiency Disorders, Australia, 2 December 2004, Brisbane, Australia.
  22. Prof. Sheng-Mou Hou, Minister of Health Taiwan, 21 November 2005, Taipei, Taiwan.
  23. Dr Hideo Shinozaki, President, National Institute of Public Health, Japan, 23 November 2007, Saitama, Japan.
  24. Dato’ Dr Narimah Awin, former Regional Adviser (Maternal and Reproductive Health), WHO SEARO, 17th October 2014, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia
  25. Professor Dr Tomiko Hokama, Dean, Graduate School of Health Sciences, University of the Ryukyus, Japan on 17th September 2016.
  26. Professor Emeritus Dr Han-Joong Kim, Chairman, CHA Strategy Committee, CHA Health systems, the Republic of Korea on 17th August 2017.
  27. Professor Tan Sri Datu Dr Mohamad Taha Arif, Community Medicine and Public Health Department, UNIMAS, Malaysia on 13th September 2018
  28. Dr Samlee Plianbangchang, Adviser to Minister of Public Health, Royal Thai Government, Thailand on 20th November 2019
  29. Dr Palitha Abeykoon, Honorary Advisor, Ministry of Health, Sri Lanka, on 8th December 2020
  30. Tan Sri Dato’ Seri Dr. Haji Noor Hisham bin Abdullah, Ex-Director General of Health, Malaysia, on 30 October 2023 in Kuching, Sarawak, Malaysia