Nicholas Lennox

Biography

In 1992 Professor Lennox was appointed as a lecturer at the establishment of the Developmental Disability Unit (DDU) at the University of Melbourne, after working as a general practitioner and in other roles in Melbourne, and for a time in New Zealand. At the University of Melbourne, he established education, clinical and research programs. He also undertook research on the roles and perceptions of general practitioners and psychiatrists who cared for people with intellectual disability. In 1997 he was appointed as Director and Associate Professor to the establish a similar unit (DDU, later Queensland Centre for Intellectual & Developmental Disability or QCIDD) at the University of Queensland, based at the Mater Hospitals.

Over 20 years, he took the QCIDD from a small unit to a thriving and productive centre which saw the development of a number of innovations in research and education, such that QCIDD has been at the forefront of the field in Australia and internationally. During that time Professor Lennox has increased the core funding of the centre (total funding 1997-2017 of $11,769,180) and has also been granted over $5M of NHMRC grants, $1.6M from non-NHMRC competitive grants and successfully gained $646K in education grants.

Uniquely in the field, he led and performed the three largest RCTs ever completed in this population. These trials demonstrated that a process, called the Comprehensive Health Assessment Program (CHAP) could improve healthcare delivery and address unmet health needs in adolescents and adults with intellectual disability. These studies changed health policy and practice in Australia and overseas. In Australia, this research led to a new Medicare item to support general practitioners to delivery health assessments. The CHAP has been commercialised by Uniquest and continues to be licensed widely in Australia.

In education, Professor Lennox has made a number of world-first contributions; including the conception, editing and writing of the first whole-of-life handbook on health and developmental disability published in Australia by Therapeutic Guidelines. He is currenting working with clinicians, academics and editors to complete the fourth edition of this book, to be release in 2021. In addition, he led a team which produced the very successful UQx/Edx, Able X series of three Massive Open On-line Courses (MOOCs). The Able X series continues to attract students and be delivered on Edx global platform. His engagement with the community has been substantial in a number of positions including eight years as President of the Australian Association of Developmental Disability Medicine.

The University of Queensland promoted him to Professor on 01/01/2010 and he was the first Professor of adult developmental disability medicine in Australia. In addition, his research contribution was recognised by his peers in 2016 when he was awarded the only 2016 Distinguished Research Award by the peak international research association; International Association for the Scientific Study of Intellectual and Developmental Disability (IASSIDD). He was also made a Fellow of both the national and international peak scientific associations; Australasian Society for Intellectual Disability (ASID) and IASSID.

Since retiring as Director of QCIDD at the University of Queensland in early 2018 he has continued to be active in education and research (including as a CI on a NHMRC project). He has also delivered international and national presentations and provided advice to government, non-government and academic centres. Most recently, Prof Lennox was invited to appeared as an expert witness at the Disability Royal Commission and to present a series of national webinars. In April 2020, he was invited to take on a position with the federal health department as a senior medical advisor on Covid-19 and disability. He also advises on the Implementation of the National Roadmap to Improve the Health Services to People with Intellectual Disability.