Our heartiest congratulations to Professor Chia Kee Seng who has been conferred the Public Administration Medal (Silver) at this year’s National Day Awards in recognition of his exemplary contributions to public health, the School’s and Singapore’s success!
The National Day Awards are given out every year to recognise individuals for their contributions to Singapore. Nearly 4,000 people were honoured this year, including civil servants, members of SAF, community and grassroots leaders, and educators.
Under his leadership as the former founding dean, the School has transitioned successfully from an academic department to Singapore’s first and national School of public health translating research into public health programmes and policies over the last six years. During his term of office, Kee Seng has been instrumental in phasing in several initiatives for the School, including the “Total Workplace Safety and Health (Total WSH)” as an integrated approach, now driven by a tri-partite committee involving the Ministries of Health and Manpower, to managing employees’ safety, health and well-being in the workplace; recruited 50,000 community-based participants into the Singapore Population Health Study; and provided the academic basis for Singapore’s War on Diabetes. Through these successful initiatives and involvement in high-level events such as the World Health Summit Regional Meeting Asia in April 2013, the international profile of the School has been raised tremendously.
The SSHSPH community congratulates Prof Chia on this truly deserving recognition of his stellar achievements. And we look forward to his continuing contributions to the School, and public health in Singapore and the region.