Silent Victories

Americans' health improved dramatically over the twentieth century. Most of this improvement resulted from the contributions of public health sciences and institutions to progressively challenge an increasing array of health problems. As old scourges of infection, perinatal mortality, and dietary deficiencies were conquered, public health's mandate expanded to take on new health threats of a changing workplace, the rise of the automobile, and chronic and complex conditions resulting from smoking, lifestyle, and other factors. Public health action often involved controversies and recriminations over past failures. In contrast, public healths many successes, even the imperfect ones, become part of the fabric of everyday life, a fact already apparent early in the last century, when C. E.A. Winslow reminded his peers that the lives saved and healthy years extended were the silent victories of public health.
Silent Victories takes a unique approach in its exploration of ten major public health issues addressed in the 20th Century: for each issue, leading scientists in the field trace the discoveries, practices and programs that reduced morbidity and mortality from disease and injury, and an accompanying chapter by an academic historian or social scientist highlights key moments or conflicts that shaped public health action on that issue. The book concludes with a look toward the challenges public health must face in the future. Together, the authors reveal the lessons of history to students, health professionals and the public seeking to understand how public health advanced the country's health in the 20th century and challenges to protecting health in the future.

- Section 1 - Control of Infectious Diseases
- 1: Stephen Ostroff, Peter Drotman, Alexandra M. Levitt: Control of Infectious Diseases - A 20th Century Public Health Achievement
- 2: Robert V. Tauxe, Emilio J. Esteban: Advances in Food Safety to Prevent Foodborne Diseases in the United States
- 3: Jill E. Cooper: A Brief Romance with Magic Bullets: Rene' Dubos at the Dawn of the Antibiotic Era
- Section 2 - Control of Disease Through Vaccination
- 4: Walter Orenstein, Alan R. Hinman: A Shot at Protection: Immunizations Against Infectious Disease
- 5: Naomi Rogers: Polio Can Be Conquered: Science and Health Propaganda in the United States from Polio Polly to Jonas Salk
- Section 3 - Maternal and Infant Health
- 6: Milton Kotelchuck: Safe Mothers, Healthy Babies: Reproductive Health in the 20th Century
- 7: Jacqueline H. Wolf: Pioneering Efforts to Decrease Infant and Maternal Mortality
- Section 4 - Nutrition
- 8: Richard D. Semba: The Impact of Improved Nutrition on Disease Prevention
- 9: Rima D. Apple: The More Things Change, ...: A Historical Perspective on the Debate over Vitamin Advertising in the United States
- Section 5 - Occupational Health
- 10: Phillip Landrigan, Anthony Robbins: Safer, Healthier Worker: Advances in Occupational Disease and Injury Prevention
- 11: Christopher Sellers: A Prejudice that May Cloud the Mentality: The Making of Objectivity in Early Twentieth-Century Occupational Health (A study of the Progressive Era origins of occupational medicine)
- Section 6 - Family Planning
- 12: Jacqueline E. Darroch: Family Planning: A Century of Change
- 13: Johanna Schoen: Teaching Birth Control on Tobacco Road and Mill Village Alley: Race, Class, and Birth Control in Public Health
- Section 7 - Oral and Dental Health: Fluoridation
- 14: Brian A. Burt, Scott L. Tomar: Changing the Face of America: Water Fluoridation and Oral Health
- 15: Gretchen Ann Reilly: The Task is a Political One: The Promotion of Fluoridation
- Section 8 - Vehicular Safety
- 16: David Sleet, Ann Dellinger, Bruce Jones: Drivers, Wheels and Roads: Motor Vehicle Safety in the 20th Century
- 17: Daniel M. Albert: The Nut Behind the Wheel: Shifting Responsibilities for Traffic Safety Since 1895
- Section 9 - Cardiovascular Disease
- 18: Kurt Greenlund, Wayne H. Giles, Nora L. Keenan, Ann Marie Malarcher, Zhi Jie Zheng, Michele L. Casper, Gregory W. Heath, Janet B. Croft: Heart Disease and Stroke Mortality in the 20th Century
- 19: Karin Garrety: Dietary Policy, Controversy and Proof: Doing Something Versus Waiting for the Definitive Evidence
- Section 10 - Tobacco and Disease Prevention
- 20: Michael Eriksen, Lawrence Green, Corinne Husten, Linda Pederson, Terry Pechacek: Thank You for Not Smoking: The Public Health Response to Tobacco Related Mortality in the United States
- 21: Allen M. Brandt: The First Surgeon Generals Report on Tobacco: Science and the State in the New Age of Chronic Disease
- Section 11 - Concluding Chapter
- 22: Jeffrey P. Koplan, Stephen B. Thacker: Public Health at the Dawn of the 21st Century