Louis Israel Dublin (November 1, 1882 – March 7, 1969) was a

Jewish American American Jews or Jewish Americans are American citizens who are Jewish, whether by religion, ethnicity, culture, or nationality. Today the Jewish community in the United States consists primarily of Ashkenazi Jews, who descend from diaspora Je ...

statistician A statistician is a person who works with theoretical or applied statistics. The profession exists in both the private and public sectors. It is common to combine statistical knowledge with expertise in other subjects, and statisticians may wor ...

. As vice president and statistician of the

Metropolitan Life Insurance Company MetLife, Inc. is the holding corporation for the Metropolitan Life Insurance Company (MLIC), better known as MetLife, and its affiliates. MetLife is among the largest global providers of insurance, annuities, and employee benefit programs, wi ...

, he promoted progressive and socially useful

insurance underwriting Underwriting (UW) services are provided by some large financial institutions, such as banks, insurance companies and investment houses, whereby they guarantee payment in case of damage or financial loss and accept the financial risk for liabilit ...

policies. As a scholar, Dublin was an important figure in the establishment of

demography Demography () is the statistics, statistical study of populations, especially human beings. Demographic analysis examines and measures the dimensions and Population dynamics, dynamics of populations; it can cover whole societies or groups ...

as a social-scientific discipline in the

United States The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territorie ...

during the 1920s and 1930s. Dublin was interested in

eugenics Eugenics ( ; ) is a fringe set of beliefs and practices that aim to improve the genetic quality of a human population. Historically, eugenicists have attempted to alter human gene pools by excluding people and groups judged to be inferior or ...

but as a Jew of recent immigrant extraction criticized eugenicists for equating biological superiority with Nordic origins. Dublin was born in

Kovno Kaunas (; ; also see other names) is the second-largest city in Lithuania after Vilnius and an important centre of Lithuanian economic, academic, and cultural life. Kaunas was the largest city and the centre of a county in the Duchy of Trakai ...

Russian Empire The Russian Empire was an empire and the final period of the Russian monarchy from 1721 to 1917, ruling across large parts of Eurasia. It succeeded the Tsardom of Russia following the Treaty of Nystad, which ended the Great Northern War. ...

. He came to the U.S. in 1886 with his parents Max and Sarah (Rosensweig). Dublin obtained his bachelor's in 1901 at

City College of New York The City College of the City University of New York (also known as the City College of New York, or simply City College or CCNY) is a public university within the City University of New York (CUNY) system in New York City. Founded in 1847, Cit ...

. He earned his Ph.D. at

Columbia University Columbia University (also known as Columbia, and officially as Columbia University in the City of New York) is a private research university in New York City. Established in 1754 as King's College on the grounds of Trinity Church in Manhatt ...

in 1904. He married Augusta Salik on April 5, 1908. Dublin taught at

Yale Yale University is a private research university in New Haven, Connecticut. Established in 1701 as the Collegiate School, it is the third-oldest institution of higher education in the United States and among the most prestigious in the wor ...

as a lecturer in vital statistics. In 1924 served as

president of the American Statistical Association The president of the American Statistical Association is the head of the American Statistical Association (ASA). According to the association's bylaws, the president is an officer, and a member of the board of directors and of the executive commit ...

. He died in Winter Park, Orange County, Florida at the age of 86.

Body Mass Index

While serving as a vice president at Met Life Insurance and as a statistician Dublin developed a height for weight table based on longevity of life insurance holders in the early 1940s. These tables would later develop into the Body Mass Index developed by

University of Minnesota The University of Minnesota, formally the University of Minnesota, Twin Cities, (UMN Twin Cities, the U of M, or Minnesota) is a public university, public Land-grant university, land-grant research university in the Minneapolis–Saint Paul, Tw ...

's cholesterol and heart disease physiology researcher

Ancel Keys Ancel Benjamin Keys (January 26, 1904 – November 20, 2004) was an American physiologist who studied the influence of diet on health. In particular, he hypothesized that replacing dietary saturated fat with polyunsaturated fat reduces card ...

in 1972. Keys intended the BMI to be used only for the study of groups and not to be applied to individuals. The index is statistically very limited in usefulness as covered a very limited demographic of people who were able to afford life insurance and who were mostly white.

Major works

*Louis Israel Dublin, Alfred J. Lotka: ''The Money Value of a Man'' (Public Health in America Series). New York : Arno Press, 1977 (Repr. of the 1930 ed. by the Ronald Press Co., New York). *with Lee K. Frankel and Miles M. Dawson, ''Workingmen's Insurance in Europe'', 19101 Who's Who *with Lee K. Frankel, ''Principles of Life Insurance'', 1911 *''Mortality Statistics of Insured Wage Earners and Their Families'', 1919 *Louis I. Dublin, ''To Be or Not to Be: a Study of Suicide'', 1933. Harrison Smith and Robert Hass, New York. *Louis I. Dublin, ''A Family of Thirty Million: The Story of the Metropolitan Life Insurance Company'', 1943. *Louis I. Dublin, ''The Facts of Life: From Birth to Death'', New York: The Macmillan Company, 1951. *''A 40 Year Campaign Against

Tuberculosis Tuberculosis (TB) is an infectious disease usually caused by '' Mycobacterium tuberculosis'' (MTB) bacteria. Tuberculosis generally affects the lungs, but it can also affect other parts of the body. Most infections show no symptoms, in ...

'', 1952 *Louis I. Dublin, ''Suicide: a Sociological and Statistical Study'', 1963. Ronald Press Company, New York.

Other works

*Louis I. Dublin, After Eighty Years (autobiography) University of Florida Press, Gainesville 1966, pp. 243 *Louis I. Dublin, "Home-Making and Careers," ''

Atlantic Monthly ''The Atlantic'' is an American magazine and multi-platform publisher. It features articles in the fields of politics, foreign affairs, business and the economy, culture and the arts, technology, and science. It was founded in 1857 in Boston, ...

'', 138: 335–43, September 1926. *Louis I. Dublin and Jessamine S. Whitney (April 1921). "The Costs of Tuberculosis" ''American Review of Tuberculosis'' 5:178-184. *Collected papers at the Archives, National Library of Medicine, Bethesda, Maryland

References

Inline

General

* * * * Marquis, Albert Nelson, ed. ''Who’s Who in America, a Biographical Dictionary of Notable Living Men and Women of the United States'', 1926–1927, vol. 14, Chicago: The A.N. Marquis Company, 1926, 624.

External links

American Statistical Association's biography (PDF file)Finding Aid to the Louis I. Dublin PapersLibrary of Congress listing of Louis I. Dublin publications
{{DEFAULTSORT:Dublin, Louis Israel 1882 births 1969 deaths American statisticians Columbia University alumni Fellows of the American Statistical Association Presidents of the American Statistical Association Jewish scientists Emigrants from the Russian Empire to the United States American Jews