Former HSPH Dean Harvey Fineberg Honored for Extraordinary Service to University

"Public health has always been focused on results. It’s focused on the difference it can make in people’s lives,” said Harvey Fineberg, former dean of HSPH. “Public health is driven to the goal.”

That purposefulness also describes Fineberg’s career as a public health scholar and visionary. A former Harvard provost, HSPH dean, and holder of four Harvard degrees, Fineberg currently serves as president of the Institute of Medicine. In addition, he is professor of health policy and management emeritus at HSPH. This June, he was honored as one of three recipients of the Harvard Medal, which recognizes extraordinary service to the University.

The award comes at a time when public health issues dominate government agendas and everyday lives. H1N1 flu, child and adult obesity, the devastation of AIDS, emotional debates over health care reform: All are problems to which Fineberg has brought a broad-gauge intellect and fresh ideas — a perspective cultivated over more than three decades at Harvard.

After earning a bachelor’s degree at Harvard College in 1967, Fineberg went on to earn a medical degree from Harvard Medical School and master’s and doctoral degrees in public policy from the Harvard Kennedy School (HKS) and Graduate School of Arts and Sciences, respectively. A medical residency at Boston’s Beth Israel Deaconess Hospital led to clinical practice at two Boston-area health centers from 1974 to 1984, during which Fineberg also taught at HKS. Throughout his career, he has been a prolific author and editor.

It was during his tenure as HSPH dean — from 1984 to 1997 — that Fineberg’s synthesizing approach came to full fruition. With the traditional boundaries between biological and social sciences eroding, especially as the dimensions of the AIDS epidemic were becoming tragically clear, he launched vital interdisciplinary centers and programs. Among these scientific collaboratives was what became the HSPH AIDS Initiative. “HIV, which was really the epidemic of our time, was also the stimulus and the opportunity for public health to show what it could do,” Fineberg said in a recent interview. Through the effort, he launched clinical, social, and laboratory studies, all in a context of research and teaching for both students and faculty.

The impact of Fineberg's work also was seen in the fields of medical technology assessment, health communications, and health and human rights. His 1979 New England Journal of Medicine article, “Evaluation of Medical Practices: The Case for Technology Assessment,” co-authored with then-HSPH Dean Howard Hiatt, forged the field and established an intellectual framework that remains keenly relevant to the current health care debate.

His focus on health communications paved the way for studies of how the media shape public understanding and individual behaviors. And his emphasis on health and human rights was reflected in the creation of the François-Xavier Bagnoud (FXB) Center for Health and Human Rights, whose founding director, the late Jonathan Mann — a pathbreaking physician and advocate — had earlier launched the World Health Organization’s Global Program on AIDS.

Today, as IOM president, Fineberg occupies perhaps the most influential platform in the nation for providing solid scientific evidence across a wide range of issues to policymakers and health professionals. More than 40 years after entering Harvard as an undergraduate, he remains “driven to the goal” of making a difference in people’s lives.

“If President Obama were to ask me what he should do about public health, I would remind him of what I believe he already knows: that health reform is much more than just providing insurance, that medical care is not the same as advancing the health of a population, that what individuals can and must do for themselves — and what we as a society must make possible in the prevention of disease — will pay many more dividends and cost our society much less than a predominant investment in tertiary care and high-technology treatment of disease after it occurs," he said.

Fineberg added, “Public health is an important goal, in and of itself. And public health is the means to a successful society.”

The Harvard Medal that Fineberg received was first given in 1981 with the principal objective of recognizing extraordinary service to Harvard University, according to an announcement in the Harvard Gazette. In addition to Fineberg, John “Jack” Cogan Jr., who is a Harvard Law School alumnus, and Patti Saris, who served on the Board of Overseers, received the award. President Drew Faust presented the medals during the annual meeting of the Harvard Alumni Association on Commencement afternoon, June 4, 2009.

-- Madeline Drexler. Photo by Tom Fitzsimmons.