Lester Breslow

Lester Breslow (March 17, 1915, in Bismarck, North Dakota, USA – April 9, 2012, in Los Angeles, California, USA) was an American physician who promoted public health. Breslow's career had a significant impact. He has been called "Mr. Public Health".

Among other positions, Breslow served as president of the American Public Health Association,

While studying to be a psychiatrist in medical school, he worked for a summer in the Fergus Falls Minnesota State Hospital for the Insane. This experience left him discouraged since there was little they could do to treat patients at that time except to keep them out of harm's way. After Breslow returned to medical school for his senior year, he shared his feelings with a friend and faculty member who introduced him to Gaylord Anderson, a new professor of public health. Anderson interested Breslow in a career in epidemiology. During World War II Breslow served in the United States Army as a public health officer on a ship sent to the Pacific.

California Department of Public Health After the war, Breslow took a position with the California State Department of Public Health.

Breslow spoke of himself as "a political activist for disadvantaged people."

University of California, Los Angeles In 1968, Breslow became Professor of Public Health at the University of California, Los Angeles. As of 1970, he became Dean of the Jonathan and Karin Fielding School of Public Health, UCLA. From 1973-1975, he served as President of the Association of Schools of Public Health. He was elected as a fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science in 1982, and held that honor at the same time as his son, Norman E. Breslow, who was elected in 1984.

Breslow became chair of the Ad-Hoc Tobacco Prevention Interim Advisory Committee in 1989, and was the vice-chair of the Tobacco Education Oversight Committee for California, 1990–1996. In 1993, he published "California's Proposition 99 on Tobacco, and its Impact". Breslow was appointed to lead the Los Angeles County Public Health Commission in 1997, tasked with reviewing "across-the-board operations of public health".

Breslow was the editor-in-chief of the four-volume Encyclopedia of Public Health (2002).

Research Breslow's work over more than half of a century made a very large impact on the world of public health. He is credited with pioneering chronic disease prevention and health behavior intervention.

One of his most famous works is with the Human Population Laboratory in Alameda County where he identified a correlation between various lifestyle issues and mortality. Breslow's data showed that a 45-year-old with six or more of these healthy habits could expect a lifespan of 11 years more than someone who had three or less of the healthy habits.

The Alameda study helped to bring about a broader view of health and disease. It established that a person's health did not depend solely on exposure to disease (a one disease-one cause model) but also to their general susceptibility to disease. The results are in alignment with the World Health Organization's efforts to redefine health as a state of "physical, mental and social well-being."

The Alameda County Study was also the first to look at the impact of social networks on mortality. Degree of social connectedness was found to be a major predictor of mortality risk, as those with more connections to family, friends, and community were likely to live longer.

Breslow and others identify two eras in public health, the first focused on communicable diseases and the second on chronic diseases as the leading cause of death. Breslow suggests that a third era would focus on health as opposed to illness, and emphasize the means of promoting well-being and leading satisfying lives. In an obituary written by one of his former protégées it says, "I was one of Lester's preventative medicine residents 15 years ago…Having had an opportunity to observe him engage with 'paupers' and 'kings,' I can attest to his treatment of all with respect and appreciation for their humanity, abilities, and contributions. I can also attest to his refusal to accept anything less than the best, from others (like me!) and particularly, from himself." 1977, Sedgwick Memorial Medal, American Public Health Association. 1997, Gustav O. Lienhard Award, Institute of Medicine (IOM) 2008, Harold S. Diehl Award, University of Minnesota Medical School

Selected works

Archives