Abraham Morris Lilienfeld (November 13, 1920 – August 6, 1984) was an American epidemiologist and professor at the

Johns Hopkins School of Hygiene and Public Health The Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health is the public health graduate school of Johns Hopkins University, a private research university in Baltimore, Maryland. As the second independent, degree-granting institution for research in epi ...

. He is known for his work in expanding epidemiology to focus on

chronic disease A chronic condition is a health condition or disease that is persistent or otherwise long-lasting in its effects or a disease that comes with time. The term ''chronic'' is often applied when the course of the disease lasts for more than three mo ...

s as well as infectious ones.

Early life and education

Lilienfeld was born in

New York City New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the List of United States cities by population, most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the L ...

on November 13, 1920. His father, Joe Lilienfeld, came from a wealthy family in Galicia, Ukraine, and worked as a Galician rabbinical scholar. Joe and his wife had immigrated to the United States in 1914 to escape the draft, leaving their money (which was all in German marks) behind in Germany when they did so. He graduated from Erasmus High School, whereupon he enrolled at

Johns Hopkins University Johns Hopkins University (Johns Hopkins, Hopkins, or JHU) is a private university, private research university in Baltimore, Maryland. Founded in 1876, Johns Hopkins is the oldest research university in the United States and in the western hem ...

in Baltimore, allowing him to move in with his brother, Sam (a Baltimore resident), in 1938. In 1941, he received his A.B. from Johns Hopkins, after which he applied to the

Johns Hopkins School of Medicine The Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine (JHUSOM) is the medical school of Johns Hopkins University, a private research university in Baltimore, Maryland. Founded in 1893, the School of Medicine shares a campus with the Johns Hopkins Hospi ...

, but was told he would be rejected because he was Jewish. He then enrolled at

Albany Medical College Albany Medical College (AMC) is a private medical school in Albany, New York. It was founded in 1839 by Alden March and James H. Armsby and is one of the oldest medical schools in the nation. The college is part of the Albany Medical Center, which ...

for a time before transferring to the

University of Maryland The University of Maryland, College Park (University of Maryland, UMD, or simply Maryland) is a public land-grant research university in College Park, Maryland. Founded in 1856, UMD is the flagship institution of the University System of M ...

's medical school. He received his M.D. from the University of Maryland in 1944, and his M.P.H. from the Johns Hopkins University School of Hygiene and Public Health in 1949.

Career

Lilienfeld joined the faculty of the Johns Hopkins University School of Hygiene and Public Health as a lecturer in 1950, and became an assistant professor of epidemiology there in 1952. From 1954 to 1958, he served on the faculty of the University of Buffalo School of Medicine. During this time, he also founded, and served as the first chairman of the department of statistics and epidemiological research at

Roswell Park Comprehensive Cancer Center Roswell Park Comprehensive Cancer Center is a cancer research and treatment center located in Buffalo, New York. Founded by surgeon Roswell Park in 1898, the center was the first in the United States to specifically focus on cancer research. The ...

, then known as Roswell Park Memorial Institute. In 1958, he returned to Johns Hopkins, where he became the head of the Division of Chronic Diseases in the Department of Public Health Administration, which became the Department of Chronic Diseases in 1961. In 1964, he was named the staff director of the President's Commission on Heart Disease, Cancer, and Stroke. In 1967, he co-founded the

Society for Epidemiologic Research The Society for Epidemiologic Research (abbreviated SER) is a learned society dedicated to epidemiology. It was originally proposed in 1967 by Abraham Lilienfeld, Milton Terris, and Brian MacMahon, and was founded the following year. Their motiva ...

, a learned society for epidemiologists. In 1970, his Department of Chronic Diseases merged with the Department of Epidemiology, and he became chair of the new department. Department of Epidemiology there. In 1974, he sustained a cardiac arrest in the middle of a class he was teaching. He was revived by his students. Following on that illness, in 1975, he resigned the chair of this department. He subsequently became the first director the Masters in Public Health Program at Johns Hopkins, and instituted its reformation and revitalization. He then became the acting chair of the Department of Mental Hygiene for a 18 or so months during which a new chair was recruited. The last administrative role he had in his career was as acting chair of the Department of Behavioral Science. He has been described as "instrumental" in the founding of the

American College of Epidemiology The American College of Epidemiology (ACE) is an American organization incorporated in 1979 to support and promote the work of American epidemiologists. It is based in Raleigh, North Carolina. Members of the American College of Epidemiology are p ...

in 1979.

Work

Lilienfeld is known for working to expand the field of epidemiology from its original focus on

infectious disease An infection is the invasion of tissues by pathogens, their multiplication, and the reaction of host tissues to the infectious agent and the toxins they produce. An infectious disease, also known as a transmissible disease or communicable dise ...

s to include

s, which has led to him being called the "father of contemporary chronic disease epidemiology." He is also known for, along with Richard Bordow, co-authoring the chapter "Biomedical Evidence for Determining Causality" in the Surgeon General's 1982 report ''Health Consequences of Smoking: Cancer'', as well as for advocating for the link between smoking and lung cancer in a 1962 article he wrote for ''

The Nation ''The Nation'' is an American liberal biweekly magazine that covers political and cultural news, opinion, and analysis. It was founded on July 6, 1865, as a successor to William Lloyd Garrison's '' The Liberator'', an abolitionist newspaper tha ...

''. In 1976, he and his colleagues began a study investigating the health effects of exposure to

microwave Microwave is a form of electromagnetic radiation with wavelengths ranging from about one meter to one millimeter corresponding to frequencies between 300 MHz and 300 GHz respectively. Different sources define different frequency ran ...

s among people in the American embassy in

Moscow Moscow ( , US chiefly ; rus, links=no, Москва, r=Moskva, p=mɐskˈva, a=Москва.ogg) is the capital and largest city of Russia. The city stands on the Moskva River in Central Russia, with a population estimated at 13.0 million ...

USSR The Soviet Union,. officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR),. was a transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 to 1991. A flagship communist state, it was nominally a federal union of fifteen nationa ...

Death

Lilienfeld died on August 6, 1984, of a heart attack in a Baltimore train station, at the age of 63.

Recognition

In 1970 he was elected as a

Fellow of the American Statistical Association Like many other academic professional societies, the American Statistical Association (ASA) uses the title of Fellow of the American Statistical Association as its highest honorary grade of membership. The number of new fellows per year is limited ...

.View/Search Fellows of the ASA
, accessed 2016-08-20. The

's most prestigious award, the "Abraham Lilienfeld Award", has been awarded annually since 1985. The

gives the "Lilienfeld Postdoctoral Prize Paper" in honor of Dr. Lilienfeld.

References

External links

Abraham Lilienfeld
on Johns Hopkins' Heroes of Public Health List {{DEFAULTSORT:Lilienfeld, Abraham Morris American public health doctors 1920 births 1984 deaths Johns Hopkins University faculty Scientists from New York City University of Maryland, Baltimore alumni Members of the National Academy of Medicine Johns Hopkins University alumni Jewish American scientists Fellows of the American Statistical Association Mathematicians from New York (state) Members of the American Epidemiological Society 20th-century American Jews 20th-century American physicians Physician-scientists