Ruth Rice Puffer

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]

Ruth Rice Puffer
Born(1907-08-31)August 31, 1907
Berlin, Massachusetts,
DiedSeptember 2, 2002(2002-09-02) (aged 95)
NationalityAmerican
Alma materHarvard School of Public Health
Smith College
Scientific career
FieldsBiostatistics
InstitutionsPan American Health Organization

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. "Dr. Ruth Rice Puffer", McMinnville News-Register, September 5, 2002
  2. "Ruth Rice Puffer: Highlights of a rewarding life" (PDF), Pan American Journal of Public Health, 12 (5), 2002
  3. Laurenti, Ruy (2003), "Ruth Rice Puffer", American Journal of Public Health, 93 (6): 865–866, doi:10.2105/AJPH.93.6.865, PMC 1447856, PMID 12773341
  4. Public Health Heroes: Dr. Ruth Puffer, Pan American Health Organization, retrieved 2017-11-19
  5. Raphael, Dana (2012), Breastfeeding and Food Policy in a Hungry World, Elsevier, p. 325, ISBN 9780323154857
  6. ASA Fellows list, American Statistical Association, retrieved 2017-11-19
  7. Reviews of Familial Susceptibility to Tuberculosis:
    • Tager, M. (March 1945), Yale Journal of Biology and Medicine (4 ed.), 17 (4): 581, PMC 2601921CS1 maint: untitled periodical (link)
    • British Journal of Tuberculosis and Diseases of the Chest, 39 (4): 107–108, October 1945, doi:10.1016/s0366-0869(45)80031-xCS1 maint: untitled periodical (link)
    • Glass, Bentley (September 1945), The Quarterly Review of Biology, 20 (3): 288, doi:10.1086/394939, JSTOR 2808926CS1 maint: untitled periodical (link)
    • Caranti, Elio (1943–1949), Genus (in Italian), 6/8 (1): 542, JSTOR 29786841CS1 maint: untitled periodical (link)
  8. Reviews of Practical Statistics in Health and Medical Work:
  9. Review of Patterns of Urban Mortality:
    • Moriyama, Iwao M. (July 1968), American Journal of Public Health and the Nations Health, 58 (7): 1300, doi:10.2105/ajph.58.7.1300-a, PMC 1228704CS1 maint: untitled periodical (link)
  10. Review of Patterns Of Mortality In Childhood:
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