Harvard School of Public Health celebrates 100 years of global health leadership

In fall 2013, Harvard School of Public Health will celebrate 100 years of discoveries and interventions by its faculty, alumni, and students that together have helped to increase life expectancy by a quarter-century and improved the health of millions worldwide since the School’s founding in 1913. Established 100 years ago as the Harvard-MIT School for Health Officers, Harvard School of Public Health (HSPH) is the longest continuously operating school of public health in the U.S. Throughout its history, the institution’s faculty, alumni, and research have been at the global forefront of preventing and eradicating diseases, creating healthier environments, improving global response to humanitarian disasters, and devising ways to deliver health care more effectively.

Major public health accomplishments that Harvard School of Public Health faculty and alumni have helped make possible include: elimination of  deadly smallpox from the planet; prevention of millions of polio deaths; efforts that have made the air we breathe in the U.S. much cleaner and safer; discovery of  the dangers of second-hand smoke; prevention of millions of deaths from cholera and similar diseases in children worldwide; reductions in the use of trans fats in the food supply; and creation of the “Designated Driver” campaign in the U.S., which has led to the prevention of countless deaths due to drunk driving.