Julie Cliff

Julie Laraine Cliff (born 1944) is an Australian physician and epidemiologist known for her work in the prevention and control of infectious diseases through investigating epidemics and health policy, particularly in Mozambique, where her career spanned around 40 years. There, her investigations revealed that the re-emergence of the paralytic disease konzo in poor rural communities was caused by high levels of cyanide in insufficiently processed cassava, as a result of changes in food preparation practices due to the economic effects of war and drought.

In 1996, Cliff was appointed an Officer of the Order of Australia, and awarded an honorary degree of Doctor of Laws by Monash University. In 2013, she delivered the John Snow Society's Pumphandle Lecture, titled "From London to Mozambique, from cholera to konzo".

Early life and education

Julie Cliff was born in 1944 in Essendon, Victoria. As a medical student she took up an elective in New Guinea, and in 1967 graduated MBBS from the University of Melbourne. She subsequently completed a diploma in tropical medicine at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine (LSHTM) and post-graduate medical training in London. In 1976 she was also appointed professor auxiliar Faculdade de Medicina at Maputo's Eduardo Mondlane University and remained so until 1998.

From 1980 to 1984 Cliff was epidemiologist at Mozambique's National Directorate of Preventative Medicine. Her colleagues in this work included Howard Bradley and Hans Rosling. Her paper revealed how desperate times changed cooking practices.

In 2000, Cliff co-authored a chapter titled "Lovers, Hookers, and Wives: Unbraiding the Social Contradictions of Urban Mozambican Women's Sexual and Economic Lives" in Meredith Turshen's African Women's Health using real life stories to describe how many poor women in post-war Mozambique put themselves at risk of HIV through the exchange of sex for essentials needed to survive.

Honors and awards In 1989 Cliff became visiting fellow at the National Centre for Epidemiology and Population Health in Canberra, Australia, and in 1993 SmithKline Beecham awarded her a fellowship. She is a fellow of the Royal College of Physicians of London. Titled "From London to Mozambique, from cholera to konzo", members would have proceeded to the John Snow pub afterwards.

Selected publications