A tribute to Dan Offord, Canada's "gentle giant" of child psychiatry.

Great sadness and deep affection marked the recent passing of Dr. David “Dan” Offord, the renowned and much-loved child psychiatrist who devoted his life and career to bettering the lives of children around the world. He died on April 10 at age 70, following a courageous battle with cancer. Regarded as one of the world’s leading experts in child development, Dr. Offord was Professor Emeritus in the Department of Psychiatry and Behavioural Neurosciences at McMaster University in Hamilton, Ontario. It was here in the early ‘80s that he launched the landmark study that first identified the scope of mental health problems in children by reporting the disturbing statistic that one in five children has a serious emotional or behavioural problem. The Ontario Child Health Study remains one of the most important population-based studies on children’s mental health conducted anywhere in the last 30 years and continues to fuel groundbreaking research into the factors that cause children to be “at risk”. For the past 20 years, as founding director of the Offord Centre for Child Studies (formerly the Canadian Centre for Studies of Children at Risk), Dr. Offord led a team of scientists, clinicians, and staff dedicated to finding solutions to the emotional, social, and cognitive problems faced by disadvantaged children. The Centre has grown to become one of the world’s leading centres for the scientific study of child emotional and behavioural problems, highly regarded in Canada and throughout the world for the strength of its research and its commitment to train future generations of scientists to tackle the important issues that have an impact on children’s mental health and development. Dr. Offord was widely recognized for his world-class research achievements, his leadership in the field of child psychiatric epidemiology, his educational contribution to generations of medical students, physicians, and other health care professionals and his devotion to the cause of disadvantaged children. For 47 years, he was the director of Christie Lake Camp near Perth, Ontario, where close to 400 disadvantaged boys and girls enjoyed a camp experience each summer. It was this real-life experience that grounded his research and clinical practice and reinforced his belief that the right supports delivered early in a child’s development can enrich the life quality and life chances of our most vulnerable children. Dr. Offord received his MD in 1957 from Queen’s University and his fellowship in psychiatry in 1965. He held positions at the University of Florida, Pennsylvania State University and the University of Ottawa before joining the faculty at McMaster in 1978 as associate professor, clinical epidemiology and biostatistics. He served as Research Director of the Chedoke Child and Family Centre (1978–1999) and as Head of the Division of Child Psychiatry at McMaster (1987–2002). Dr. Offord’s expertise in the area of disadvantaged children and youth earned him international acclaim and deep admiration from colleagues in Canada and around the world. He was President of the Canadian Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry from 1982 to 1984, served 10 years as a National Health Scientist, and was an Atkinson Fellow at the Canadian Institute for Advanced Research. He was the recipient of many awards from the American Public Health Association, the Psychology Foundation of Canada, the American Psychiatric Association, the American Orthopsychiatric Association, and the Canadian Paediatric Society. He was awarded the Golden Jubilee Medal and was recently recognized by the Ontario Legislative Assembly. He chaired many national and international committees including the Ontario Mental Health Foundation, the Ontario Ministry of Community and Social Services, the Institute of Medicine, the National Academy of Sciences, and the Premier’s Council on Health, Well-being, and Social Justice. He was involved with the children’s mental health programs of the National Institutes of Health in Washington, and was a member of the MacArthur Foundation Research Network on Psychopathology and Development. He authored over 200 peer-reviewed publications on children’s mental health, disadvantaged children, mental health policy for children, antisocial behaviour, child psychiatric epidemiology, community programs for children, and the Early Years. In 2001, he received the Order of Canada in recognition of his work as a psychiatrist and his commitment to improving the lives of children. With Dr. Offord’s death, the world has lost an outstanding scientist, a devoted clinician and a passionate advocate of children and youth, an extraordinary leader whose work has had a profound influence on the practice of child psychiatry and on mental health research and policy across many continents. Jean Pigott, founding chair of the Offord Centre, has described Dr. Offord as “a giant of a man who understood that our future lies in the hands of our children – the leaders of tomorrow.” He was indeed a giant in the field of child psychiatry, but a gentle giant to all who knew and worked with him, particularly the children whose lives he touched so deeply. Dan Offord devoted his life to understanding the factors that make children vulnerable and that put them at risk of a poorer quality of life. He thought deeply about the interventions that communities need to put in place to reduce the burden of suffering associated with psychosocial disadvantage and with emotional and behavioural problems in children and youth. His life and career stand as a shining example of what can be achieved through the combination of first-class scholarship and a practical clinical concern for the wellbeing of all children.

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