Project Categories

History Informing Public Health Preparedness Policy in the 21st Century: A Qualitative Study of Non-Pharmaceutical Interventions and Community Experiences during the 1918-1919 Influenza Pandemic

Award Year: 2007 Investigator: Howard Markel, Alexandra Minna Stern
The influenza pandemic of 1918-1919 was the deadliest contagious calamity in human history, killing 650,000 people in the United States and 50 million worldwide. But the pandemic's effects varied geographically - some communities were devastated while others suffered few if any deaths. To learn why, Howard Markel, M.D., Ph.D., F.A.A.P. and Alexandra Minna Stern, Ph.D., conduct a comprehensive review of the strategies used by 43 U.S. cities during the 1918-1919 flu epidemic.

Minds Apart: Severe Brain Injury and Health Policy

Award Year: 2006 Investigator: Joseph Fins
The two very public court cases of Karen Ann Quinlan and Terri Schiavo have colored much of the debate about the persistent vegetative state and futile medical treatment. But another recent case, that of Terry Wallis, a man with severe brain damage who began to speak after spending 19 years in a nursing home in a minimally conscious state, provides a different example - one of possible improvement, although not full recovery. Joseph J. Fins, M.D.

The Un-Natural History of Public Health: From Epidemics and Injuries to Chronic Illness and Bio-Terrorism

Award Year: 2002 Investigator: Gerald Markowitz, David Rosner
Since September 2001, America's public health infrastructure has received more attention than at any time since the polio vaccination campaigns of the 1950s. David Rosner, Ph.D., M.P.H. and co-principal investigator Gerald Markowitz, Ph.D. address the effects on the field of public health of new mandates and resources aimed at protecting Americans from bioterrorism.

Privacy and Surveillance: The History and Politics of Public Health Reporting

Award Year: 2001 Investigator: Ronald Bayer, Amy Fairchild
Although surveillance has long been a feature of public health practice, there has been no systematic and comprehensive analysis that meaningfully relates the history of surveillance to current public health policy and practice. Drs.

The Influence of History and Tradition on Public Health Strategies: A Nationally Comparative Approach to the AIDS Epidemic

Award Year: 2000 Investigator: Peter Baldwin
This project explores why the public health response to the AIDS epidemic has varied so greatly in industrialized nations. By setting the approach to the AIDS epidemic in a broader historical context, Dr. Baldwin analyzes the factors that have determined AIDS responses in five countries - the U.S., France, Germany, Britain and Sweden.

Firearms and Public Health

Award Year: 1997 Investigator: David Hemenway
Firearms are the second leading cause of injury-related death in the U.S. While attention to the problem has increased, the amount of research on the topic lags behind. This project provides new information about gun carrying, storage, brandishing, injuries, the use of guns in self-defense, and the connection between guns and suicide. It also synthesizes new public health literature relevant to firearms policy and analyzes private firearm surveys from college students and adults.

Why New and Resurgent Infectious Diseases Caught Public Health by Surprise and a Strategy to Prevent This

Award Year: 1995 Investigator: Tamara Awerbuch, Richard Levins
This study investigates why the public health community was caught by surprise by the resurgence of diseases that were in decline such as malaria, TB, cholera and rabies, and the appearance of apparently new diseases including AIDS, legionnaire's disease, hantavirus, and Lyme disease.