Lowell S. Levin,EdD,MPH (1927-2019)

Lowell Stern Levin, professor emeritus at Yale University School of Public Health, vocal advocate of health care reform, and adviser for more than three decades to the World Health Organization (WHO) Regional Office for Europe, died at 91 on April 14, 2019. He served as Editor-in-Chief of Health Education Monographs (the forerunner of what is today Health Education & Behavior) from 1967 to 1970 and was an Honorary Fellow of the Society for Public Health Education.

Born November 27, 1927, in Cleveland, Ohio, Levin grew up in Los Angeles, graduated from Beverly Hills High School, and attended college at the University of California at Los Angeles, where he majored in English Literature. He subsequently earned an MA degree in educational administration at Stanford before going on to earn his doctorate in educational administration at Harvard and the MPH degree at Yale. A gregarious man with an outsized charisma and a deeply cultivated sense of irreverent humor, he performed stand-up comedy to earn money while he worked his way through college and graduate school.

After serving in the U.S. Army and being stationed in Japan from 1955 to 1956, he took up his first faculty teaching positions—both in preventive medicine—at the University of Vermont (1957-1959) and then at the University of Pittsburgh (1960-1963). Later, he went to Yale, where he taught and mentored a generation of public health professionals until his retirement in 1998, remaining intellectually engaged as a Fellow of Yale’s Henry Koerner Center for Emeritus Faculty.

A globalist and early proponent of integrating international education into both undergraduate and graduate education, Professor Levin established the Division of International Health at Yale in 1990 (later reestablished as the Global Health Division), and led the Yale WHO Centre for Health Promotion Policy and Research. In 2009, the Yale School of Public Health honored him by creating the Lowell S. Levin Award, which is given annually to a graduating student whose work addresses health promotion and global health.

Professor Levin predated the WHO Commission on the Social Determinants of Health, which was set up in 2005, as one of the first to recognize the importance of the social determinants of health and the role of intersectoral policies for improving health. During the 1990s, he collaborated with Erio Ziglio of WHO to launch The Verona Initiative, a major and seminal European effort to better integrate and improve the impact of public policies in areas such as agriculture, communications, education, employment, environment, tourism, and transportation on health.

Professor Levin was the author or coauthor of several influential books. His first book, Self-Care: Lay Initiatives in Health (Levin, Katz, & Holst, 1976), sought to elevate the role of non-professional resources as mediating structures and lay consumer self-care in strengthening personal capacity for health and well-being (Levin, 1983). The argument was extended further in The Hidden Health Care System (Levin & Idler, 1981), which he coauthored with Ellen Idler. His third book, Medicine on Trial (Inlander, Levin, & Weiner, 1988), coauthored with Charles Inlander and Ed Weiner—all directors of the People’s Medical Society—challenged the medical establishment by exposing the extent of iatrogenesis and medical error. The book was trenchant and highly controversial when published, but subsequent research on medical error has borne out many of its findings and conclusions (Yale School of Medicine, 2019).

An iconoclast, Levin often defrocked the medical profession. One of his well-known aphorisms was, “It is now time that we replace public health’s aggressive disease-oriented Asclepius symbol of medicine with the peaceful countenance of Hygeia who more accurately reflects the commitment of public health.”

The quintessential community organizer and citizen of his beloved New Haven, Levin often chided city officials about environmental cleanliness. He started the “We Mean Clean” initiative for residents to voluntarily pick up neighborhood litter on Saturday mornings, was a founder of Friends of Beaver Ponds Park in New Haven and helped create what is today a beautiful city park from what was previously a garbage dump, and served on the New Haven Solid Waste Management Commission (Yale School of Medicine, 2019).

Levin was, and will be remembered as, an extraordinary intellect, inspirational force, and pioneering public health professional and champion of citizen participation in health promotion (Apfel, Kickbusch, & Ziglio, 2019). Dr. Piroska Östlin, Acting WHO Regional Office Director for Europe, recalled Levin’s contribution to public health in the region by saying,

Professor Levin was a visionary and radical in the true sense. Decades before we developed the European policy framework Health 2020 and the public health goals under the global 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, he formulated the vision of equitable health care for all and helped WHO develop its strategies. (WHO Regional Office for Europe, 2019)

He is survived by Joanna G. Stuart, his wife of 18 years, and daughters Brooke A. Levin of Oakland, CA, Jill S. Levin of Albuquerque, NM, Lori K. Levin of New Haven, CT, and stepdaughter Ilana F. Stuart of Brooklyn, NY, along with five grandchildren and one great grandchild; Corinne G. Levin, his first wife of 45 years, died in 1998. A celebratory memorial service held in Connecticut, August 17, 2019, was attended by more than 200 family, friends, and colleagues.