The Halbert L. Dunn Award is the most prestigious award presented by the National Association for Public Health Statistics and Information Systems (NAPHSIS). The award has been presented since 1981 providing national recognition of outstanding and lasting contributions to the field of vital and health statistics at the national, state, or local level. [1]
The award was established in honor of the late Halbert L. Dunn, M.D., Director of the National Office of Vital Statistics from 1936 to 1960. Dr. Dunn was highly instrumental in encouraging the states to establish state vital statistics associations and played a major role in developing NAPHSIS. The award is presented at the Hal Dunn Awards Luncheon during the association’s annual meeting.
The winners of the Halbert L. Dunn Award have been:
Source: NAPHSIS
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) is the national public health agency of the United States. It is a United States federal agency, under the Department of Health and Human Services, and is headquartered in Atlanta, Georgia.
The United States Census Bureau (USCB), officially the Bureau of the Census, is a principal agency of the U.S. Federal Statistical System, responsible for producing data about the American people and economy. The Census Bureau is part of the U.S. Department of Commerce and its director is appointed by the President of the United States.
A birth certificate is a vital record that documents the birth of a person. The term "birth certificate" can refer to either the original document certifying the circumstances of the birth or to a certified copy of or representation of the ensuing registration of that birth. Depending on the jurisdiction, a record of birth might or might not contain verification of the event by such as a midwife or doctor.
The American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) is an American international non-profit organization with the stated goals of promoting cooperation among scientists, defending scientific freedom, encouraging scientific responsibility, and supporting scientific education and science outreach for the betterment of all humanity. It is the world's largest general scientific society, with over 120,000 members, and is the publisher of the well-known scientific journal Science.
William Farr CB was a British epidemiologist, regarded as one of the founders of medical statistics.
The National Academy of Medicine (NAM), formerly called the Institute of Medicine (IoM) until 2015, is an American nonprofit, non-governmental organization. The National Academy of Medicine is a part of the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine, along with the National Academy of Sciences (NAS), National Academy of Engineering (NAE), and the National Research Council (NRC).
Vital statistics is accumulated data gathered on live births, deaths, migration, foetal deaths, marriages and divorces. The most common way of collecting information on these events is through civil registration, an administrative system used by governments to record vital events which occur in their populations. Efforts to improve the quality of vital statistics will therefore be closely related to the development of civil registration systems in countries. Civil registration followed the practice of churches keeping such records since the 19th century.
The National Center for Health Statistics (NCHS) is a U.S. government agency that provides statistical information to guide actions and policies to improve the public health of the American people. It is a unit of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and a principal agency of the U.S. Federal Statistical System. It is headquartered at University Town Center in Hyattsville, Maryland, just outside Washington, D.C.
The General Register Office for England and Wales (GRO) is the section of the United Kingdom HM Passport Office responsible for the civil registration of births, adoptions, marriages, civil partnerships and deaths in England and Wales and for those same events outside the UK if they involve a UK citizen and qualify to be registered in various miscellaneous registers. With a small number of historic exceptions involving military personnel, it does not deal with records of such events occurring within the land or territorial waters of Scotland, Northern Ireland or the Republic of Ireland; those entities' registration systems have always been separate from England and Wales.
Aid to Families with Dependent Children (AFDC) was a federal assistance program in the United States in effect from 1935 to 1997, created by the Social Security Act (SSA) and administered by the United States Department of Health and Human Services that provided financial assistance to children whose families had low or no income.
Civil registration is the system by which a government records the vital events of its citizens and residents. The resulting repository or database has different names in different countries and even in different US states. It can be called a civil registry, civil register, vital records, and other terms, and the office responsible for receiving the registrations can be called a bureau of vital statistics, registry of vital records and statistics, registrar, registry, register, registry office, or population registry. The primary purpose of civil registration is to create a legal document that can be used to establish and protect the rights of individuals. A secondary purpose is to create a data source for the compilation of vital statistics.
The American Public Health Association (APHA) is a Washington, D.C.-based professional organization for public health professionals in the United States.
Halbert L. Dunn, M.D. (1896–1975) was the leading figure in establishing a national vital statistics system in the United States and is known as the "father of the wellness movement".
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In African-American history, the post–civil rights era is defined as the time period in the United States since Congressional passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, the Voting Rights Act of 1965, and the Fair Housing Act of 1968, major federal legislation that ended legal segregation, gained federal oversight and enforcement of voter registration and electoral practices in states or areas with a history of discriminatory practices, and ended discrimination in renting or buying housing.
Dr. Alvin T. Onaka is the Registrar of Vital Statistics for the State of Hawaii. Dr. Onaka was the 2008 recipient of the Halbert L. Dunn Award, the most prestigious award presented by the National Association for Public Health Statistics and Information Systems (NAPHSIS) and regarded as one of the most important honors in the field of biostatistics in the United States. He was elected President of NAPHSIS in 2002.
Sidney Katz, MD was a pioneering American physician, scientist, educator, author, and public servant who developed the Index of Independence of Activities for Daily Living (ADLs) in a career spanning more than sixty years. He made several other advances in geriatric care, including the U.S. Nursing Home Reform Act of 1987, which established basic rights for nursing home residents. Katz received several public and private awards, including the Maxwell A. Pollak Award (1993) and the American Geriatrics Society’s (AGS) Foundation for Health in Aging (2001). The AGS award was also won by former US President Jimmy Carter and poet Maya Angelou.
The Dr. Nathan Davis Awards are presented annually by the American Medical Association (AMA) and awarded to elected and career public servants in national, state, and local governments for outstanding government service. These awards are named for the founder of the American Medical Association, Nathan Smith Davis.
Martin Marc Cummings, MD (1920-2011), was director of the National Library of Medicine (NLM) from 1964 to 1983, and subsequently Distinguished Professor at Georgetown University School of Medicine. During his two decades at the NLM, it was transformed into a unique international biomedical communications center, tr and one of the most advanced scientific libraries in the world. During this time, NLM was established as a new, civilian entity on the National Institutes of Health campus in Bethesda, Maryland. [it was already a civilian agency, and already on campus, but became an official component of NIH in 1968].