A Life in Public Health - Lester Breslow

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A Life in Public Health
An Insider's Retrospective

Author: Lester Breslow, MD, MPH

Pub Date: 09/2004
248 pp Hardback
ISBN13: 9780826127143

List: $65.00

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Description | Table of Contents | Reviews | Sample Chapter | Author Biographies

Description

From his time as a Truman appointee on the Health Needs of the Nation to his tenure as Dean of UCLAs School of Public Health, Dr. Lester Breslow has been a force behind the most important public health developments of the last century. With his trademark humor and conviction, Breslow recounts his participation in the fields ground swell from the study of communicable disease to the current control of chronic illnesses. He reveals the story behind his Human Population Laboratorys seven healthy habits (sleep right, eat right, dont smoke, dont drink too much, exercise, keep your weight down, eat breakfast) that Americans now know as doctrine.

Breslow tells what it took to garner the Surgeon Generals cigarette warning, the current high tax on tobacco sales, and todays air pollution emission standards. He shows how a sometimes reticent medical establishment has come to understand that living conditions and behaviors are more important to longevity than the treatment of disease itself. This behind-the-scenes expose is fascinating reading for medical and public health students, educators, and policy makers alike.

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Table of Contents

Introduction
Personal Life
Preparation and Start in Public Health
Military Life
Disease Control
A Larger View of Public Health
Concepts, Determinants, and Measurement of Health and Role of the Human Population Laboratory
Tobacco Control
Public Health Administration
International Health
Academe
Reflections and Recommendations
References
Index

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Reviews

"Lester Breslow has long had the respect of his colleagues for his tenacious approach to chronic diseases long before it was fashionable in public health, for his ability to study human populations with the imagination that a bench scientist might use in studying microorganisms and for the careful way he has measured, documented, analyzed, simplified and then presented complex results in an understandable wayWhile California has been a consistent focus of his public health activities, his professional involvement and influence have been national and global. He has enriched the field by his work, the health of people in the aggregate by his findings, and now the lives of his admirers by sharing his story."
-Bill Foege "In his account of his life in public health--at the local level, in Minnesota in the U.S. Army during World War II; at the state level, in California in academia (UCLA); and internationally during the past 65 years--Lester Breslow has given us much more than the story of a remarkable life, he has provided us with an extraordinary picture of the evolution of public health and its importance to the public in the United States in the second half of the 20th Century. One would expect no less from one of the greatest leaders of public health. The book reads like a novel, it is hard to put down, and it contains history, insight, vision, practical advice, and inspiration. A gem!"
-- Philip R Lee, MD, Consulting Professor, Program in Human Biology, Stanford University Professor of Social Medicine (Emeritus), School of Medicine, UCSF

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Author Biographies

Lester Breslow received his education at the University of Minnesota, earning his B.A. (1935), M.D. (1938), M.P.H. (1941) and Sc.D. (Hon.) (1988). After two years with the Minnesota Department of Health and then Military service with the seventh infantry division in World War II he joined the California Department of Public Health in 1946 to found the Bureau of Chronic Diseases. He left the Department in 1967 after serving as State Health Officer to become a professor at the UCLA School of Public Health, then Chairman of the UCLA Medical Schools Department of Preventive and Social Medicine. Thereafter, he served as Dean, UCLA School of Public Health (1972-1980), following which he retired but has continued public health activity to the present time, 2004. Dr. Breslow has been President of the International Epidemiology Association, the American Public Health Association, and the Association of Schools of public Health; he is a member of the Institute of Medicine. He has received the Lasker Award, Sedgwick Medal of the American Public Health Association, Dana Award, Healthtrac Award, and the Lienhard Award of the Institute of Medicine, National Academy of Sciences.

Dr. Breslow has served as Director of Studies for President Trumans Commission on Health Needs of the Nation, the University of Californias Health Plan Grading System, and the National Cancer Institutes report on Cancer Control Objectives for the Nation 1985-2000. He initiated Californias chronic disease control program and the Human Population Laboratory including its health studies in Alameda County, and played a leading role in Californias tobacco control program. He was the founding editor of the Annual Review of Public Health and editor-in-chief of the Encyclopedia of Public Health.

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