Public health, as a discipline, relies heavily on numbers and statistics, abstractions that make population-scale information useful.  But in order to gain a complete picture of how decisions are made, tomorrow’s leaders benefit from the hard-won expertise of public health pioneers.  The anecdotes, inside perspective and historical memory of those who essentially invented public health in the state of Florida are now available for all to learn from.

In 1997, realizing that an entire generation of wisdom was on the verge of being lost, then-dean of the College of Public Health (now Dean Emeritus) Dr. Charles Mahan spearheaded an initiative to record the oral histories of 60 experts in what came to be the Florida Public Health Oral History Project. Working with Mahan were Dr. E. Charlton Prather, a former Florida health officer, and Sam Fustukjian, the late director of the USF libraries.  Prather interviewed administrators, midwives, physicians, laboratory managers, epidemiologists, nurses and many other experts prominent in the field of public health in Florida. The interviews were conducted at Florida Department of Health units in Tallahassee, Jacksonville and West Palm Beach, as well as on campus at the USF College of Public Health, between 1997 and 2002, yet the memories recorded stretch back to the 1920s.

The interviewees discuss their motivation to pursue a career in the field, their education, the challenges and highlights of their jobs, and their determination to ensure the health of the people of Florida despite organizational upheaval and the vicissitudes of state politics.  In addition, insights such as the strategies used to make Florida a leader in areas like childhood immunizations and smoking cessation — as well as sleuth out the then-unknown source of mosquito-borne illnesses — add color to a field that can sometimes seem impersonal.

Important lessons from an era when basic health was taken for granted ring true in a time of declining vaccination rates.  In telling the story of polio sweeping through his Boy Scout camp, Mahan notes: “My tent mate died of polio and I was in quarantine for a full month.”

For the full story and more on the oral history project, visit USF Libraries.

Dr. Charles Mahan served as COPH dean from 1995-2002.  In 1996, the Florida Board of Regents established the Lawton and Rhea Chiles Center for Health Mothers and Babies, and Mahan was named founding director.  The USF COPH Department of Community and Family Health is the academic home for the Chiles Center.