Columbia University records are closed to researchers for 25 years from date of creation.
Correspondence, reports, grant proposals and other materials from Allan Rosenfield’s tenure as director of the Columbia University School of Public Health Center for Population and Family Health, 1975-1986, as well as a diaries, correspondence and reprints from Rosenfield’s time in Thailand in the late 1960s and early 1970s.
History and Biography
The Center for Population and Family Health (CPFH), known since 2000 as the Harriet and Robert Heilbrunn Department of Population and Family Health, a department of the Mailman School of Public Health, was founded in 1975 to improve the planning, management and effectiveness of population and family health programs in the context of broader development efforts.
Dr. Allan Rosenfield, an obstetrician/ gynecologist who specialized in family planning, family health, and population control, served as the first director of the CPFH from 1975-1986. During Rosenfield’s tenure as director, projects operated by the CPFH included multiple family planning research projects in Africa and Asia; the Law and Policy Program, which sought to inform government policies concerning access to family planning services, human rights, and women's rights; the creation of clinical service programs in upper Manhattan for families and teenagers; and, in partnership with Columbia's Department of Pediatrics, comprehensive primary health clinics in public schools in the Washington Heights neighborhood of Manhattan.
Allan Rosenfield, the son of Harold Rosenfield, a prominent obstetrician/gynecologist, was born on April 28, 1933 in Boston, Massachusetts. He received a BA in biochemistry from Harvard in 1955, and a MD from the Columbia University College of Physicians and Surgeons in 1959. In 1962, following an internship and a one year surgical residency at Beth Israel Hospital in Boston, Rosenfield served two years with the US Air Force in Korea and the Hamilton Air Force Hospital in California before undertaking special obstetrics/gynecology training at the Boston Hospital for Women.
Starting in 1966, Rosenfield spent several years living abroad, including one year in Lagos, Nigeria, teaching obstetrics and gynecology at the University of Lagos Medical School, and six years in Thailand as a representative of the Population Council and medical adviser to the Thai Ministry of Public Health on maternal and child health and family planning issues. He returned to America in 1973 where he continued to work for the Population Council as the Director of the Child Health/Family Planning Program until 1975, when he joined Columbia University as a professor of public health and obstetrics and gynecology, and director of the Center for Population and Family Health. He was the Director of the Center until 1986, when he became the Dean of the Mailman School of Public Health.
Rosenfield was renowned for championing women’s right to healthcare and family planning. Among his notable publications was Maternal Mortality – A Neglected Tragedy: Where is the M in MCH? written with Deborah Maine and published in the Lancet in 1985. Rosenfield remained Dean of the Mailman School until a few months before his death in New York City in October 2008. He was survived by his wife and family.
Organization
Organized in seven series: I. Subject files: General; II. Subject files: School of Public Health; III. Correspondence: Individuals; IV. Chronological correspondence and memoranda; V. Depo-Provera; VI. Conferences; VII. Allan Rosenfield: Personal.
Series I. Subject files - General, 1975-1986
Boxes 1-12
Correspondence and other materials on a broad variety of topics, including issues in maternal and child health, family planning training courses, controversies in the field of population control and family planning, Rosenfield’s and CPFH’s personal and institutional support of Planned Parenthood nationally and internationally, and some material documenting the operations of the Center for Population and Family Health within the Columbia University Mailman School of Public Health. Arranged alphabetically.
Series II. Subject files - School of Public Health, 1975-1986
Boxes 12-16
Correspondence and other materials documenting the administrative functioning of the Columbia University Mailman School of Public Health, including a 1978 self-study, teaching programs, curriculum development, planning for joint degrees, fundraising and committee activities. There is also correspondence, meeting minutes, reports and other documents from the Policy Advisory Committee, which functioned as the executive committee of the faculty for the School of Public Health; arranged alphabetically.
Series III. Correspondence, Individuals, 1975-1986
Boxes 17-19
General correspondence and letters of recommendation; arranged alphabetically.
Series IV. Chronological Correspondence and memoranda, 1975-1986
Boxes 19-31
Departmental correspondence and memoranda to files. Retained as these were the only departmental correspondence from this period; arranged chronologically.
Series V. DMPA (Depo-Provera) Controversy, 1978-1980
Boxes 32-33
Correspondence and reports on the negative impact of Depot medroxyprogesterone acetate (DMPA), a chemical used in birth control products, on women’s health. Depo-Provera is the most well-known product containing the chemical and the terms are used interchangeably. Also includes a study of the correlation between DMPA and endometrial cancer; arranged chronologically.
Series VI. Conferences, 1983-1984, 1986
Boxes 33-37
Professional meetings and events attended by Allan Rosenfield; arranged chronologically.
Series VII. Allan Rosenfield - Personal, 1967-1986
Boxes 37-39
Miscellaneous records documenting the professional activities of Allan Rosenfield previous to his assuming the directorship of the CPFH, including correspondence and diaries documenting his time in Thailand in the late 1960s and early 1970s; reprints of articles about population crisis and control in Thailand; a grant application for a predecessor institution of the CPFH; slides for presentations and photos; and three appointment books; arranged chronologically.
Correspondence, reports, grant proposals and other materials from Allan Rosenfield’s tenure as director of the Columbia University School of Public Health's Center for Population and Family Health, 1975-1986, as well as a diaries, correspondence and reprints from Rosenfield’s time in Thailand in the late 1960s and early 1970s.
The Center for Population and Family Health (CPFH), known since 2000 as the Harriet and Robert Heilbrunn Department of Population and Family Health, a department of the Mailman School of Public Health, was founded in 1975 to improve the planning, management and effectiveness of population and family health programs in the context of broader development efforts.
Dr. Allan Rosenfield, an obstetrician/gynecologist who specialized in family planning, family health, and population control, served as the first director of the CPFH from 1975-1986. During Rosenfield’s tenure as director, projects operated by CPFH included multiple family planning research projects in Africa and Asia; the Law and Policy Program, which sought to inform government policies concerning access to family planning services, human rights, and women's rights; the creation of clinical service programs in upper Manhattan for families and teenagers, and, in partnership with Columbia's Department of Pediatrics, comprehensive primary health clinics in public schools in the Washington Heights neighborhood of Manhattan.
Correspondence, reports, grant proposals and other materials from Allan Rosenfield’s tenure as director of the Columbia University School of Public Health Center for Population and Family Health, 1975-1986, as well as a diaries, correspondence and reprints from Rosenfield’s time in Thailand in the late 1960s and early 1970s.
Subject Headings and Related Records
Administrative Information
Transfer from the Mailman School of Public Health (Acc. # 2009.10.09).
Processed March – April 2013, by Jennifer McGillan; duplicates were removed.