Local PSR Leaders Earn National Recognition and Praise
Two SFPSR Steering Committee members will be honored at the upcoming American Public Health Association Annual Meeting & Exposition in Philadelphia November 7-11, 2009.
Bob Gould Awarded Sidel-Levy Award for Peace
The Sidel-Levy Award for Peace, which recognizes an APHA member who has made outstanding contributions to preventing war and promoting international peace, is being presented to Robert M. Gould, MD.
Gould is associate pathologist of the pathology department at Kaiser Permanente Hospital, San Jose, California. He chairs APHA’s Peace Caucus, and is an active member of the Environmental Committee of the Santa Clara County chapter of the California Medical Association. Currently on the national board of directors of Physicians for Social Responsibility (PSR), he served as National President in 2003, and has served as President of the San Francisco-Bay Area Chapter of PSR since 1989.
Among his peace efforts, Gould has authored or co-authored numerous resolutions passed by the APHA Governing Council against nuclear testing, an excessive military budget, the Strategic Defense Initiative, landmines, chemical weapons and other issues. He also has submitted many resolutions adopted by the California Medical Association including those calling for preventing dioxin waste from medical facilities, preventing human exposure to mercury, reducing the use of pesticides, replacing medical devices containing phthalates from neonatal intensive care units, reducing air pollution, abolishing weapons of mass destruction and avoiding accidental nuclear war.
Gould was honored with the Santa Clara County Medical Association’s “Outstanding Contribution in Community Service” award in 2001 and was listed as one of Santa Clara County’s “Top 400 Physicians” in peer-reviewed surveys published in San Jose Magazine from 2001–2007.
He has authored and co-authored many writings, including Rollback! Rightwing Power in U.S. Foreign Policy, with Thomas Bodenheimer, the chapter “Public Health Effects of Biological Weapons” in the book War and Public Health, and the chapter “Prevention of Nuclear Terrorism” in the book Terrorism and Public Health. He co-wrote editorials for the American Journal of Public Health titled “Bioterrorism Initiatives: Public Health in Reverse?” as well as “Bioterrorism Preparedness: Cooptation of Public Health?” and “The Pitfalls of Bioterrorism Preparedness: the Anthrax and Smallpox Experiences.” He wrote “Public Health Challenges of Bioterrorism” for the journal San Francisco Medicine and has contributed to a number of published letters and other works on the issue of bioterrorism and biopreparedness.
In 2000 Gould served as a member of the scientific panel providing advice to the Advisory Group on Low Level Radioactive Waste Management established by then-California Gov. Gray Davis to examine options for the disposal of low-level radioactive waste. He served as a member of the steering committee that provided oversight and planning to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention sponsored “International Summit on Breast Cancer and Environment: Research Needs.”
Gould has given numerous presentations on a wide range of health and environmental issues, including showing the Physicians for Social Responsibility presentation, “Environmental and Public Health Effects of Global Warming” to a large number of medical audiences. As an active speaker at hospital grand rounds and other community events, his topics have included “Health and Environmental Effects of Nuclear Weapons and Militarism,” “Health Impacts of War,” “Collateral Damage: Health and Environmental Consequences of U.S. Foreign Policy,” and “Public Health Issues Related to Biological Weapons and Bioterrorism.”
In 2008, Gould was the invited speaker at the Global Forum on Civilization and Peace organized by the Academy of Korean Studies and delivered the address “Protecting Generations at Risk.” He was part of a special delegation during the International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War World Congress in New Delhi and met with the president and prime minister of India to advocate for Indian leadership in the global movement to abolish nuclear weapons.
Tom Hall Awarded Lifetime Achievement Award
Tom Hall, MD, DrPH, will be awarded the APHA Lifetime Achievement Award from the International Health Section. Each year, the International Health Section of the American Public Health Association (APHA) recognizes outstanding contributions by APHA members through its Lifetime Achievement Award for Excellence in International Health. The Lifetime Achievement Award was created by the International Health Section to honor the visionaries and leaders in APHA who have shaped the direction of international health. Awardees are honored for their quality, creativity, and innovativeness of their contributions to the field of international health and for their contributions to the development of APHA or the International Health Section.
Hall is a lecturer in the University of California, San Francisco (UCSF), Department of Epidemiology and Biostatistics and Executive Director of the Global Health Education Consortium. He has served on the board of the San Francisco Bay Area chapter of Physicians for Social Responsibility since 1987, having served previously as the President of the Washington State PSR (1983-84), on the national House of Delegates for several years in the 1990’s, and on the Steering Committee of the New Zealand chapter of International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War during 1985-86.
He received undergraduate, MD and MPH degrees from Harvard and his DrPH degree in international health from Johns Hopkins. He has held faculty appointments in the schools of public health of the University of Puerto Rico, Johns Hopkins, University of North Carolina (UNC) at Chapel Hill, and the University of Washington in Seattle. At UNC he was director of the Carolina Population Center. Non-academic positions have included medical director of a rural hospital, director of a regional health planning agency, and Chief Medical Officer (Research) in the New Zealand Department of Health (1985-86). He joined UCSF in 1988, directed a postdoctoral training program in HIV research (1989-96) and since then has taught and mentored students in international health. He has consulted with the World Health Organization (WHO), the World Bank and many countries on strategic health workforce planning. He is primary author of the WHO ToolKit for Human Resources Development.
