HIV/AIDS, Women's Health Advocate Rosenfield Dies

Main Category: HIV / AIDS
Also Included In: Women's Health / Gynecology
Article Date: 20 Oct 2008 - 5:00 PDT

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Allan Rosenfield, an advocate for women's health and HIV/AIDS issues worldwide for more than 40 years, died Sunday at age 75 of amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, the New York Times reports. Rosenfield served as dean of Columbia University's Mailman School of Public Health, and throughout his career worked on issues related to maternal AIDS-related deaths, women's reproductive health and human rights, and family planning. According to the Times, Rosenfield's "most notable effort" likely was his involvement in a program to prevent mother-to-child HIV transmission, which to date has delivered health care to more than 500,000 women and infants.

Rosenfield joined Columbia's faculty in 1975 as a public health and ob-gyn professor, and he became director of the school's Department for Population and Family Health. Rosenfield in 1986 was appointed dean of the Mailman School of Public Health, where he organized global initiatives -- such as the Averting Maternal Death and Disability Program with funding from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and the International Center for AIDS Care and Treatment Programs with $125 million in funding from the President's Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief. In 2000, Rosenfield partnered with nine private foundations to start the MTCT-Plus Initiative to address MTCT. Rosenfield served as national chair of the Planned Parenthood Federation of America from 1985 to 1986 and was chair of the Program Board of the American Foundation for AIDS Research (Segelken, New York Times, 10/16). Rosenfield also was a trustee of the Kaiser Family Foundation.

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