Cesar Victora
Cesar G. Victora (born 1952) is a Brazilian-born
epidemiologist, academic and specialist in child health Cesar G. Victora
and nutrition.[1] He is an Emeritus Professor of
Epidemiology at the Federal University of Pelotas[2]
and holds or has held honorary appointments at the
Universities of Harvard,[3] Oxford, and Johns Hopkins,
and at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical
Medicine.[4]
Victora's research has driven global policies on
breastfeeding and early nutrition. His research includes
Multi-Country Evaluation of IMCI and the COHORTS
collaboration.[5][6] Moreover, he was the joint principal
investigator of the three Pelotas Birth Cohort Studies
conducted in 1982, 1993 and 2004.[1] He was one of
the coordinators of the Multicenter Growth Reference Born March 28, 1952
Study that led to the development of WHO Child São Gabriel, Rio Grande do Sul
Growth Standards. In 2017, he was awarded the State, Brazil
Canada Gairdner Global Health Award.[7] Academic background
Victora has served on various international committees Alma Federal University of Rio Grande do
for the World Health Organization and UNICEF in the mater Sul
areas of child health and nutrition.[1] He was a London School of Hygiene and
founding member and the scientific coordinator of the Tropical Medicine
Countdown to 2015 Initiative that tracked progress of
countries toward the Millennium Development Goals.[8] He is one of the leaders of the new Countdown
to 2030 initiative for monitoring the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals aimed at reducing
maternal and child mortality.[9] In 2024, he was elected to the Royal Society[10] as a foreign member.
Education and training
Victora was born in São Gabriel, Rio Grande do Sul, Brazil on 28 March 1952. He graduated in medicine
at the Federal University of Rio Grande do Sul in 1976, when he began a one-year-long residency in
community health at the Murialdo Health Centre, Secretaria da Saúde do Rio Grande do Sul. The next
year he began teaching at Federal University of Pelotas.[1]
In 1980, Victora moved to the United Kingdom for his Ph.D. in health care epidemiology, at London
School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine.[11] His Ph.D. thesis was entitled The epidemiology of child
health in Southern Brazil. The relationships between mortality, nutrition, health care and agricultural
development. He completed his Ph.D. in 1983.[7]
Later career
After completing his Ph.D, Victora returned to Brazil and, jointly with Fernando Barros, became the
principal investigator in one of the longest-running birth cohort studies in the world, the 1982 Pelotas
Birth Cohort, in which 6,000 individuals have been followed up to the present time as of 2017.[7] With
Barros, he also set up new birth cohorts in 1993, 2004 and 2015, making the city of Pelotas one of the
most intensively studied populations in the world.[12]
In 1980's, Victora conducted the first study showing the importance of exclusive breastfeeding for
preventing infant mortality.[13] His findings contributed to global policy recommendations by UNICEF
and the World Health Organization for mothers to breastfeed their infants exclusively for the first six
months of life. Victora's research during this time helped understand how the first 1000 days influence the
lifelong outcomes such as chronic illnesses and human capital.[14]
Victora became a UNICEF consultant for Brazilian Country Office in 1987 and served in this position
until 1993. Later, in 1995 he became a UNICEF Consultant for Evaluation and Research Office at
UNICEF in New York for one year, where he led the development of the Multiple Indicator Cluster
Surveys, currently used in several countries.[15] In 1996, he became the head of the WHO Collaborating
Centre for Nutrition in the area of Maternal and Child Nutrition at the Federal University of Pelotas. The
same year he was also given the title of Honorary Professor at Department of Epidemiology, London
School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine.[8]
In 1997, Victora became the Senior Technical Advisor for the Multi-Country Evaluation of the Integrated
Management of Childhood Illness Strategy at World Health Organization, Geneva, a study that involved
12 countries.[16] He coordinated the Lancet/Bellagio Child Survival Series in 2003 and later became one
of the founding members of Countdown to 2015: Maternal, Newborn and Child Health initiative.[17]
Victora began teaching at Bloomberg School of Public Health, Johns Hopkins University in 2007. In
2008, he stepped down from his position of the Head of the WHO Collaborating Centre at the Federal
University of Pelotas. Victora became professor emeritus at the Federal University of Pelotas in 2009 and
in 2012, Oxford University made him an Honorary Fellow.[8] From 2011 to 2014, he served as the
President of the International Epidemiological Association. In 2014, he also started teaching at the
Harvard TH Chan School of Public Health as Visiting Professor.[18]
At the Federal University of Pelotas, Victora coordinates the International Center for Equity in Health. He
has over 680 peer-reviewed publications and is a member of the editorial boards of several journals,
including The Lancet.[19] More recently, his long-term birth cohorts documented the benefits of
breastfeeding for adult intelligence, education and income.[20] Victora also made important contributions
on how to evaluate the impact of health programs on child mortality, and on the study of social
inequalities in child health.[14] As of 2017, he currently leads the International Center for Equity in
Health.[21]
Personal life
Victora's work is based in Pelotas where he lives with his wife Mariangela Silveira, an obstetrician. His
son, Gabriel Victora is a professor at Rockefeller University and a 2017 MacArthur Fellow ([Link]
[Link]/fellows/1001/).
Honors and awards
1992 - Sendas National Health Prize, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil
1996 - State Medical Prize (1st Edition), State Health Council and State Secretariat of
Health, Rio Grande do Sul State, Brazil
2001 - Renowned Researcher Prize (Health Sector), Rio Grande do Sul State Research
Foundation
2005 - Awarded the honorary title of "Citizen of Pelotas", by the City Mayor, Bernardo de
Souza
2005 - Conrado Wessel Prize in Medicine[22]
2006 - Elected as full member of the Brazilian Academy of Sciences
2008 - National Order of Scientific Merit Medal, having been awarded the degree of
“Comendador” of the Brazilian Republic
2008 - Carso Institute Award for Personal Trajectory in Health Research
2008 - Pan American Health and Education Foundation's Abraham Horwitz Award for
Leadership in Inter-American Health[23]
2010 - National Order of Medical Merit Medal, having been awarded the degree of
“Comendador” of the Brazilian Republic[24]
2010 - Global Pediatric Research Award by Hospital for Sick Children[25]
2016 - Prize of the 54th Legislature, State Assembly of Rio Grande do Sul, Brazil.
2017 - John Dirks Canada Gairdner Global Health Award
2017 - Patricia Martens Annual Award for Excellence in Breastfeeding Research by Journal
of Human Lactation, International Lactation Consultants Association[8]
2018, 2019, 2020, 2021 - Highly-Cited Scientist, Clarivate/Web of Science (among the top
1% of the world's scientists in his field)
2020 - Science and Technology Prize, CBMM (Companhia Brasileira de Metalurgia e
Mineração).
2021 - Richard Doll Prize, International Epidemiological Association [26]
2023 - National Order of Scientific Merit Medal, having been awarded the degree of Great
Cross of the Brazilian Republic
2023 - Almirante Alvaro Alberto Medal, Brazil Navy/National Council for Scientific and
Technological Development
2024 - Elected as Foreign Member of the Royal Society, United Kingdom
Bibliography
Books and monographs
Epidemiologia da desigualdade: um estudo longitudinal de 6000 crianças brasileiras [The
epidemiology of inequality: a longitudinal study of 6000 Brazilian children]. São Paulo:
Cebes-Hucitec, 1988; (2nd edition published in 1989; 3rd edition in 1992). Spanish Edition:
Epidemiologia de la Desigualdad. Washington: Pan-American Health Organization, 1992.
Saúde e nutrição das crianças nordestinas. Pesquisas estaduais 1987-92 [Health and
nutrition of children of Northeastern Brazil. State surveys 1987-92]. Brasília: UNICEF, 1995.
Evidence on the long-term effects of breastfeeding: systematic reviews and meta-analyses.
Geneva: WHO, 2007. (ISBN 978-92-4-159523-0).
Practical Epidemiology: Using Epidemiology to Support Primary Health Care. Oxford
University Press, 2021 (ISBN 9780192848741).[27]
Articles and papers
Evidence for protection by breast-feeding against infant deaths from infectious diseases in
Brazil The Lancet 330, 319-322 (1987)
The role of conceptual frameworks in epidemiological analysis: a hierarchical approach.
International journal of epidemiology 26 (1), 224-227 (1997)
Evaluation designs for adequacy, plausibility and probability of public health programme
performance and impact. International journal of epidemiology 28 (1), 10-18 (2003)
Applying an equity lens to child health and mortality: more of the same is not enough. The
Lancet 362, 233-241 (2003)
Evidence-based public health: moving beyond randomized trials. American Journal of Public
Health 94 (3), 400-405 (2004)
How can we achieve and maintain high-quality performance of health workers in low-
resource settings? The Lancet 366, 1026-1035 (2005)
Rapid growth in infancy and childhood and obesity in later life–a systematic review Obesity
Reviews 6 (2), 143-154 (2005)
Maternal and child undernutrition: consequences for adult health and human capital. The
Lancet 371, 340-357 (2008)
Worldwide timing of growth faltering: revisiting implications for interventions using the World
Health Organization growth standards. Pediatrics 125, e473-80 (2010)
Maternal and child undernutrition and overweight in low-income and middle-income
countries. The Lancet 382, 427-451 (2013)
International standards for newborn weight, length, and head circumference by gestational
age and sex: the Newborn Cross-Sectional Study of the INTERGROWTH-21st Project. The
Lancet 384, 857-868 (2014).[33]
Breastfeeding in the 21st century: epidemiology, mechanisms, and lifelong effect. The
Lancet 387, 475-490 (2016).[34]
Revisiting maternal and child undernutrition in low-income and middle-income countries:
variable progress towards an unfinished agenda. The Lancet 397, 1388-1399 (2021).[35]
References
1. "Cesar Victora: leader in child health and development" ([Link]
ancet/article/PIIS0140-6736(07)60015-4/fulltext).
2. "Cesar Victora: Health behind the statistics" ([Link]
[Link]
Archived from the original ([Link]
th-behind-the-statistics/) on 2017-08-07. Retrieved 2017-10-20.
3. "Department of Global Health and Population" ([Link]
and-population/researchers/). 6 September 2012.
4. "Cesar G. Victora" ([Link]
5. "Tudo o que construímos como cientistas está ameaçado, diz Cesar Victora" ([Link]
[Link]/site/ocultar-home/tudo-o-que-construimos-como-cientistas-esta-ameacado-diz
-cesar-victora/31458/).
6. "The Multi-country Evaluation of Evaluation of Evaluation of IMCI Effectiveness, Cost and
Impact" ([Link]
(PDF).
7. "Congratulations to Cesar Victora awarded 2017 Gairdner Global Health Award" ([Link]
[Link]/web/20171023175100/[Link]
ons-to-cesar-victora-awarded-2017-gairdner-global-health-award/). Archived from the
original ([Link]
d-2017-gairdner-global-health-award/) on 2017-10-23. Retrieved 2017-10-20.
8. "Presenting the Patricia Martens Annual Award for Excellence in Breastfeeding Research:
Cesar G. Victora" ([Link]
nnual-award-for-excellence-in-breastfeeding-research-cesar-g-victoria/). 23 July 2017.
9. "César Victora wins global health award" ([Link]
wins-global-health-award). 22 May 2024.
10. "Royal Society" ([Link] Retrieved May 27, 2024.
11. "Epidemiologista Cesar Victora é o primeiro pesquisador brasileiro a ganhar o Prêmio
Saúde Global da Fundação Gairdner, do Canadá" ([Link]
s/epidemiologista-cesar-victora-e-o-primeiro-pesquisador-brasileiro-ganhar-o-premio-saude-
global-da-fundacao-gairdner-do-canada/).
12. "Cesar Victora ganha prêmio Gairdner de Saúde Global" ([Link]
03/28/cesar-victora-ganha-premio-gairdner-de-saude-global/).
13. "Professor brasileiro ganha mais importante prêmio científico do Canadá... - Veja mais em
a" ([Link]
[Link]).
14. "Increased breastfeeding could save lives — if governments step up their game" ([Link]
[Link]/2016/01/28/breastfeeding-saves-lives/). 28 January 2016.
15. Semeniuk, Ivan (28 March 2017). "Seven wonders of science" ([Link]
[Link]/life/health-and-fitness/health/gairdners-awards-2017-winners-medical-science/article3
4433286/?ref=[Link] The Globe and Mail.
16. "Cesar Victoria" ([Link]
ra/). Archived from the original ([Link] on 2017-08-24. Retrieved
2017-10-20.
17. "Data needs for analyses of inequalities: WHAT WE LEARNED FROM THE COUNTDOWN
TO 2015" ([Link]
[Link]) (PDF).
18. "Palestra com Dr. Cesar Victora é nesta quarta-feira" ([Link]
as/noticias/palestra-com-dr-cesar-victora-e-nesta-quarta-feira).
19. "Cesar Victora" ([Link]
20. Victora, Cesar G; Horta, Bernardo Lessa; de Mola, Christian Loret; Quevedo, Luciana;
Pinheiro, Ricardo Tavares; Gigante, Denise P; Gonçalves, Helen; Barros, Fernando C
(2015). "Association between breastfeeding and intelligence, educational attainment, and
income at 30 years of age: a prospective birth cohort study from Brazil" ([Link]
[Link]/pmc/articles/PMC4365917). The Lancet Global Health. 3 (4): e199 – e205.
doi:10.1016/S2214-109X(15)70002-1 ([Link]
0002-1). ISSN 2214-109X ([Link] PMC 4365917 (http
s://[Link]/pmc/articles/PMC4365917). PMID 25794674 ([Link]
[Link]/25794674).
21. "WHO Collaborating Centre for Health Equity Monitoring" ([Link]
spx?cc_ref=BRA-84&designation_date1=12/5/2017&designation_date2=12/6/2017&).
22. "Prêmio FCW Ciência e Cultura 2010 anuncia vencedores" ([Link]
ogs/ciencia-diaria/premio-fundacao-conrado-wessel-anuncia-vencedores-da-nona-edicao/).
23. "48th DIRECTING COUNCIL" ([Link]
(PDF).
24. "Cesar Victora ministra aula inaugural das pós em Saúde Coletiva e Nutrição" ([Link]
[Link]/2011/08/professor-cesar-g-victora-ministra-aula-inaugural-dos-programas-de-pos-
em-saude-coletiva-e-nutricao/). 29 August 2011.
25. "A Heritage of Impactful Programs to Enhance Global Child Health Systems" ([Link]
[Link]/globalchildhealth/advocacy-kt-policy/Past%20Programs/[Link]).
26. "Cesar Vitora Wins 2021 Richard Doll Prize" ([Link]
_Wins_2021_Richard_Doll_Prize.aspx).
27. Practical Epidemiology: Using Epidemiology to Support Primary Health Care ([Link]
[Link]/academic/product/practical-epidemiology-9780192848741?cc=us&lang=en&).
Oxford University Press. 28 January 2022. ISBN 978-0-19-284874-1.
Retrieved from "[Link]
