Dr. David Naylor, OC, MD, DPhil, FRCPC, FRSC, FCAHS, one of Canada’s most preeminent health scientists, has made major scholarly and policy contributions with a profound influence on health service delivery, public health, and health research funding.
Dr. Aubie Angel, President, Friends of CIHR, notes that “David’s remarkable capacity to analyze and unravel the complexities of the Canadian healthcare system, together with the ability to communicate it eloquently and lucidly, is unique and explains his reputation as a thought leader”.
David Naylor is Professor of Medicine and President Emeritus of the University of Toronto (2005-2013). Before that, he was Dean of Medicine at U of T (1999-2005).
Naylor grew up in Woodstock, Ontario. He received his MD at the University of Toronto and as a Rhodes Scholar, earned a DPhil in Social and Administrative Studies at the University of Oxford. He specialized in Internal Medicine and did post-Fellowship research in Clinical Epidemiology before joining the Department of Medicine at the University of Toronto in 1988. From 1991-1998, he initiated and led the Institute for Clinical Evaluative Sciences (ICES), now Canada’s largest independent network of healthcare investigators, research trainees, and students.
Naylor is the author or co-author of over 300 scholarly publications with a major interest in cardiovascular care. His oeuvres span social history, public policy, epidemiology and biostatistics, and health economics, as well as clinical and health services research in most fields of medicine. He has served on a variety of editorial boards for several international medical journals.
Naylor has been active in public policy for almost 30 years. Among other assignments, he was involved in the transition of Canada’s Medical Research Council to the Canadian Institutes of Health Research (CIHR), and a two-term inaugural governor of CIHR (2000-04). Naylor chaired Canada’s national review of public health after the 2003 SARS outbreak. The SARS report catalyzed the creation of the Public Health Agency of Canada, the appointment of the first Chief Public Health Officer of Canada, and major new investments in public health at the federal level. In 2014-15, Naylor chaired the federal advisory panel on healthcare innovation, and in 2016-17 chaired the federal review of support for fundamental science that produced “The Naylor Report”. The Government of Canada has responded favorably to many of the report’s key recommendations on governance and funding, and it appears likely to have a durable and positive effect on Canadian science funding and policy for the next generation.
Naylor’s contributions have been recognized with many awards from national medical and surgical societies in Canada, the US, UK, and Australasia. He is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada (2004) and the Canadian Academy of Health Sciences (2005), an international member of the US National Academy of Medicine, and an Officer of the Order of Canada (2006). He was inducted into the Canadian Medical Hall of Fame in 2016.
