Biography:Ruth Rice Puffer
Ruth Rice Puffer | |
|---|---|
| Born | August 31, 1907 Berlin, Massachusetts, |
| Died | September 2, 2002 (aged 95) |
| Nationality | American |
| Alma mater | Harvard School of Public Health Smith College |
| Scientific career | |
| Fields | Biostatistics |
| Institutions | Pan American Health Organization |
Ruth Rice Puffer (August 31, 1907 – September 2, 2002) was an American biostatistician who headed the Department of Health Statistics of the Pan American Health Organization, where she led the Inter-American Investigation of Childhood Mortality.[1][2][3][4][5]
Life
Puffer was born in Berlin, Massachusetts, and went to Hudson High School (Massachusetts).[1] She graduated from Smith College in 1929, began working with Edgar Bright Wilson in the Harvard School of Public Health, and in 1933 moved to Nashville, Tennessee, to become director of statistics in the Tennessee Department of Public Health. After additional graduate study with Wade Hampton Frost at Johns Hopkins University, she returned to Harvard and obtained a doctorate in public health (unusually, without also having completed an M.D.) in 1943.[1][2] She published her dissertation research on tuberculosis[2] as a book through the Harvard University Press.
After completing her doctorate, Puffer returned to Tennessee, but her interest in international health statistics was sparked by a 1946 lecture tour in Chile, and a return visit there in 1950.[2] From 1953 to 1970, she worked with the Pan American Health Organization.[1][2][3] Since that time, she continued to work as a consultant, including trips to India, Thailand, and Indonesia.[2] She moved to Corvallis, Oregon in 1982, and to McMinnville, Oregon, where she died, in 1991.[1]
Recognition
Puffer was elected as a Fellow of the American Statistical Association in 1966.[6] In 1970, Smith College gave her an honorary doctorate, and in 1977, the Tennessee Department of Public Health gave her their Centennial Award for outstanding service. In 1978, she won the Abraham Horwitz Award for Inter-American Health. In 2002 on the occasion of the 100th anniversary of the Pan American Health Organization, the organization listed her as one of 100 "public health heroes".[2]
Books
Puffer was the author of:
- Familial Susceptibility to Tuberculosis: Its Importance as a Public Health Problem (Harvard University Press, 1944)[7]
- Practical Statistics in Health and Medical Work (McGraw-Hill, 1950)[8]
- Patterns of Urban Mortality (with G. Wynne Griffith, Pan American Health Organization, 1967)[9]
- Patterns of Mortality in Childhood (Pan American Health Organization, 1973)[10]
References
- ↑ 1.0 1.1 1.2 1.3 1.4 "Dr. Ruth Rice Puffer", McMinnville News-Register, September 5, 2002, https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/82455612
- ↑ 2.0 2.1 2.2 2.3 2.4 2.5 2.6 "Ruth Rice Puffer: Highlights of a rewarding life", Pan American Journal of Public Health 12 (5), 2002, http://www.scielosp.org/pdf/rpsp/v12n5/14085.pdf
- ↑ 3.0 3.1 Laurenti, Ruy (2003), "Ruth Rice Puffer", American Journal of Public Health 93 (6): 865–866, doi:10.2105/AJPH.93.6.865, PMID 12773341
- ↑ Public Health Heroes: Dr. Ruth Puffer, Pan American Health Organization, http://www.paho.org/hq/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=3386&Itemid=139&lang=en, retrieved 2017-11-19
- ↑ Raphael, Dana (2012), Breastfeeding and Food Policy in a Hungry World, Elsevier, p. 325, ISBN 9780323154857, https://books.google.com/books?id=O8vQIK1FCFAC&pg=PA325
- ↑ ASA Fellows list, American Statistical Association, http://www.amstat.org/ASA/Your-Career/Awards/ASA-Fellows-list.aspx, retrieved 2017-11-19
- ↑ Reviews of Familial Susceptibility to Tuberculosis:
- Tager, M. (March 1945), "none", Yale Journal of Biology and Medicine 17 (4): 581
- "none", British Journal of Tuberculosis and Diseases of the Chest 39 (4): 107–108, October 1945, doi:10.1016/s0366-0869(45)80031-x
- Glass, Bentley (September 1945), "none", The Quarterly Review of Biology 20 (3): 288, doi:10.1086/394939
- Caranti, Elio (1943–1949), "none" (in Italian), Genus 6/8 (1): 542
- ↑ Reviews of Practical Statistics in Health and Medical Work:
- Parkhurst, Elizabeth (August 1950), "none", American Journal of Public Health and the Nation's Health 40 (8): 1017, doi:10.2105/ajph.40.8.1017-a
- Deardorff, Neva R. (September 1950), "none", Social Service Review 24 (3): 413–414, doi:10.1086/637983
- Knowelden, J. (September 1950), "The Statistician's Job", The British Medical Journal 2 (4679): 610, doi:10.1136/bmj.2.4679.610-b
- Arnstein, Margaret (February 1951), "none", The American Journal of Nursing 51 (2): 152, doi:10.2307/3459266
- Sellers, A. H. (March 1951), "none", Canadian Journal of Public Health 42 (3): 113–114
- Winsor, C. P. (June 1951), "none", The Quarterly Review of Biology 26 (2): 243–244, doi:10.1086/398224
- ↑ Review of Patterns of Urban Mortality:
- Moriyama, Iwao M. (July 1968), "none", American Journal of Public Health and the Nation's Health 58 (7): 1300, doi:10.2105/ajph.58.7.1300-a
- ↑ Review of Patterns Of Mortality In Childhood:
- Colley, J. R. T. (November 1973), "none", The British Medical Journal 4 (5888): 363, doi:10.1136/bmj.4.5888.363
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