American Plagues: Lessons from Our Battles with Disease

American Plagues relates stories of epidemics of our past smallpox, yellow fever, malaria, polio offering lessons that help us better understand health problems of today like HIV/AIDS, heart disease and Ebola. Readers learn about these past plagues, those who helped conquer them, and how they shed light on health information of today.

Stephen H. Gehlbach, MD, MPH, is Dean Emeritus of the School of Public Health and Health Sciences at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst. He served in the Epidemic Intelligence Service with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) based in Atlanta. A past president of the Council on Education for Public Health, the national accrediting body for academic public health programs in the United States, he chaired numerous site visits to schools of public health across the country. A committed educator throughout his career he currently teaches courses in the fields of epidemiology and preventive medicine including ＂Clinical Preventive Services＂ and ＂Epidemiology and Medical Care.＂ In 2010 he received a Fulbright award to Lebanon where he taught and advised students in a health sciences program. Gehlbach has authored two books related to epidemiology: Interpreting the Medical Literature, and American Plagues: Lessons from Our Battles with Disease. He has also been an active medical researcher with over 90 peer-reviewed journal articles. He has been a core member of a research team conducting an international, cohort study of osteoporosis in women that has followed over 50,000 women in 10 countries for 6 years.