1.2 - History of Epidemiology

Follow the links in the list below, and explore selected events in the history of epidemiology and population health.

1800s

• 1849-54 → John Snow formed and tested the hypothesis on the origin of cholera in London - one of the first studies in analytic epidemiology

1900s

• 1910s → Flu pandemic
• 1920 → Goldberger published a descriptive field study showing the dietary origin of pellagra
• 1940s → Fluoride supplements were added to public water supplies in randomized community trials
• 1949 → Initiation of the Framingham study of risk factors for cardiovascular disease
• 1950 → Epidemiological studies link cigarette smoking and lung cancer, demonstrating the power of case-control study design
• 1954 → Field trial of the Salk polio vaccine - the largest formal human experiment
• 1959 → Mantel and Haenszel develop a statistical procedure for stratified analysis of case-control studies
• 1960 → MacMahon published the first epidemiologic text with a systematic focus on study design
• 1964 → US Surgeon General's Report on Smoking and Health establishes criteria for evaluation of causality
• 1970s → Large community-based trials were implemented, such as Stanford Three Communities; worldwide eradication of smallpox
• 1980s → Chronic disease, injury, and occupational epidemiology; HIV epidemic
• 1990s → Behavioral risk factor epidemiology; prevention of adverse health outcomes through policies and regulations; national programs in breast and cervical cancer prevention; tobacco epidemiology; emerging infectious diseases; criticism of epidemiology for being inconsequential ('small' risk ratios); standardization of surveillance methods; Mad cow disease (BSE) in England and Europe; Variant Creutzfeld-Jacob disease; aging of USA; disaster epidemiology

2000s

• 2000s → Genetic and molecular epidemiology; health disparities; racialism; HIPAA in the USA; West Nile Virus;
• 2002 → bioterrorism; anthrax and smallpox threat and vaccinations
• 2003 → SARS, quarantines and public health law; and worldwide epidemiology; BSE in Canada
• 2004 → SARS recurrence; BSE in the USA; the flu epidemic
• 2009 → 2010 H1N1 pandemic
• 2020 → COVID-19 pandemic