Alfredo Morabia

I have a broad experience in the field of public health as an occupational physician, public health official and spokesperson, researcher and author of articles on contemporary epidemiology and a historian of the discipline and its applications.

Physician: After a residency in internal medicine (1978-1982) in Geneva, Switzerland, I trained in preventive occupational medicine (1982-1985,) including two years in Italy, where I learned worker-based participatory techniques to develop prevention on the worksite.

Epidemiologist With a grant from the Swiss government I studied at The Johns Hopkins University School of Public Health and in 1989 received the first PhD in epidemiology ever obtained by a researcher located in Switzerland. In 1990, after receiving a Master in Biostatistics, also at Johns Hopkins, I became director of the first Epidemiology Unit (later Division) ever created in a Swiss hospital. Historian: In my work as an historian I aim to strengthen professional identity among my colleagues and especially among young epidemiologists by connecting them to their predecessors in the field who worked to improve the health of the public and made a difference. Editor: I am now Editor in chief of the American Journal of Public Health. Previously I was Editor in Chief off two international journals: the International Journal of Public Health and Preventive Medicine.

Recent Publications:

• Laskaris, Z., Morabia, A. History in epidemiology training: what do epidemiologists think? Epidemiology 2015; 26(1):133-135.

• Morabia, A. Save Epidemiology’s Footprints! The case of Harvard Epidemiology. Epidemiology 2015; 26(2):280-287.

• Morabia, A. Mervyn Susser, the last of the three classical epidemiology tenors. Ann Epidemiol 2015; 25(2):140-2.

• Kahn, L, Morabia, A. Using the numerical method in 1836, James Jackson bridged French therapeutic epistemology and American medical pragmatism. J Clin Epidemiol 2015;68:397-404.013.

• Morabia, A. Has Epidemiology Become Infatuated with Methods? A Historical Perspective on the Place of Methods During the Classical (1945–1965) Phase of Epidemiology. Annual Review of Public Health Review, 2015;36(1):69-88.