Media statement

Top woman researcher at the MRC receives an award

Cape Town

Prof Priscilla Reddy, the Director of the Medical Research Council’s Health Promotion Research and Development Unit was inducted into the Nurse Researcher Hall of Fame. The awards were held in conjunction with the Forum of University Nursing Deans in South Africa (FUNDISA) who nominated Prof Reddy.

A citation about her work mentioned the following: ‘She has demonstrated evidence of being a founding member of the Health Promotion movement in South Africa.   She has conducted several large scale surveys, bio behavioral randomized controlled trails and trained several doctoral level candidates.”

Prof Reddy was quite surprised by her inclusion into the hall of fame but felt proud to be associated with the nursing fraternity. “I am delighted to be a part of this occasion  and to be able to use my experience in conducting relevant health research in South Africa and abroad.”
Prof Reddy’s research has covered a broad area ranging from the determinants of behavior of young people to the health education behavior of nurses in primary health care setting.  Prof Reddy’s research has been published in international journals including the American Journal of Public Health.

Amongst her other work she has served on internationally significant committees such as the Institute of Medicine of the National Academies of Science on two separate occasions namely “Antiretroviral Drug Use in Research Constrained Settings” in 2003 – 2004 AND “Scaling up treatment for the Global AIDS Pandemic Challenges and Opportunities”. This committee was responsible for making recommendations to the congress of the United States of America.

Prof Reddy also made major contributions to several significant health policies and programmes in South Africa, the most significant being the tobacco control legislation.