Simon Chapman

Simon Chapman AO PhD FASSA Hon FFPH (UK) is Emeritus Professor in Public Health at the University of Sydney School of Public Health, Faculty of Medicine and Health, having retired in February 2016 after a career spanning five decades. He holds a Bachelor of Arts degree from the University of New South Wales and a PhD in Medicine from the University of Sydney, completed in 1984 with research on cigarette advertising semiotics. Chapman's early activism included co-founding MOP UP, which became BUGA UP, using graffiti on tobacco billboards to protest industry tactics. He joined the University of Sydney in 1984, teaching Master of Public Health students and leading courses in Public Health Advocacy and Tobacco Control. He served as Deputy Editor (1992-1997), Editor (1998-2008), and Emeritus Editor of BMJ's Tobacco Control journal, and as commissioning editor for low- and middle-income countries. Additional roles include staff-elected Fellow of the University Senate (2007-2011), board member and chair of Australian Consumers’ Association (life member 2003), and co-convenor of the Coalition for Gun Control (1994-1996).

Chapman's research specializations encompass tobacco control, media advocacy, risk communication, gun control, wind farm health complaints, prostate cancer screening, and unassisted smoking cessation. He has authored 21 books, including Great Expectorations: Advertising and the Tobacco Industry (1986), Public Health Advocacy and Tobacco Control: Making Smoking History (2007), Over Our Dead Bodies: Port Arthur and Australia's Fight for Gun Control (1998/2013), Wind Turbine Syndrome: A Communicated Disease (2017, with Fiona Crichton), Quit Smoking Weapons of Mass Distraction (2022), and Better to be looked over than overlooked: 50 years of public health research and advocacy (2026). Over 330 peer-reviewed papers and editorials, plus hundreds of opinion pieces, have earned more than 20,000 Google Scholar citations. His influence includes shaping Australia's plain tobacco packaging laws and post-Port Arthur gun reforms. Major awards comprise the Officer of the Order of Australia (2013), WHO World No Tobacco Day Medal (1997), National Heart Foundation Gold Medal (1999), American Cancer Society Luther L. Terry Award (2003), NSW Premier’s Cancer Researcher of the Year (2008), and Sidney Sax Medal, Public Health Association of Australia (2008).

Professional Email: simon.chapman@sydney.edu.au