Kerr Lachlan White: A short biography

Kerr L. White, M.D., was Deputy Director for Health Sciences of the Rockefeller Foundation from 1978 to 1984. From 1964 to 1977 he was Professor of Health Care Organization and founding chairman of that department at the Johns Hopkins University. Educated at McGill University in economics, political science, and medicine, White did postgraduate work at Yale University, the London Hospital Medical School, and the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine. For a decade he practiced and taught internal medicine at the University of North Carolina with a special emphasis on the psychosocial aspects of care, including research on the influence of emotional factors on venous pressure and congestive heart failure. During this period he introduced the "primary medical care" and conducted a number of studies in the field that was later defined as "Health Services Research." He is the author or co-author of some 225 publications, including ten books, in the fields of health services, health statistics, epidemiology, public health and medical education. These include: "Epidemiology as a Fundamental Science"; "Health Care: An International Study"; "The Task of Medicine: Dialogue at Wickenburg; "Health Services Research: An Anthology" and "Healing the Schism: Epidemiology, Medicine, and the Public's Health".

Dr. White has been widely recognized for his lifetime contribution to primary care and health services research. In September 1995, Dr. White was awarded one of the Second Annual Primary Care Award for Education from the Pew Charitable Trust. He was also recently honored by the receipt of the 1996 Baxter Health Services Research Prize. The Baxter Foundation described Dr. White as "perhaps the most influential figure in the field of health services research, a discipline that emerged from his study of health care delivery."

The discipline that Dr. White helped pioneer thirty years ago has grown exponentially in the last several years and has resulted in increased attention to issues of health services research in medical schools nationwide. In the spring of 1996, Emory University dedicated a new center for health services research, the Kerr L. White Institute. At the University of Virginia, health services research is carried on at the Health System by the Department of Health Evaluation, currently chaired by Dr. William A. Knaus.

An Interview with Kerr White, 1995

An Interview with Kerr White, conducted by Edward Berkowitz, 12 March 1998

Comments 35 Years After "The Ecology of Health Care"

Kerr White's acceptance of the Baxter Foundation Prize

Other web sites concerning Dr. White and his work:

International Clinical Epidemiology Network (INCLEN), Philadelphia, PA

National Centre for Epidemiology & Population Health, Australian National University, Canberra, ACT, Australia

International Epidemiological Association