 WHAT'S NEW!!In memory of Hod OgdenA brief life history Horace G. Ogden, long-time public servant and eloquent advocate for health education and its role in community development and public health, died January 3,1998, at home in Falls Church, Virginia. Mr. Ogden was 72. He was a pioneer in the health education effort against tobacco, established a national focal point for health education at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), and devoted a lifetime of national and international service to preserving health and preventing disease. Hod Ogden, as he was known to several generations of practitioners in local, national and international public health, worked throughout his life to forge a public health partnership including "informed individuals, established community resources, and the formal public health system." His advocacy of this "broader constituency" led to national efforts to improve health education in schools and to governmental partnerships with agricultural extension services, the media, and community organizations to provide information with which the public could participate in making decisions related to their own health problems. Mr. Ogden served as the first director of the federal Bureau of Health Education (renamed the Center for Health Promotion) at CDC from 1974 to 1982. In that role, he administered federal health education programs -- including anti-smoking efforts -- and forged ties with health educators throughout the world. Prior to that assignment, he lived in Bethesda, and worked for more than two decades for the Department of Health, Education, and Welfare in Washington, Bethesda, and Rockville, with the U.S. Public Health Service. He had a gift for motivating others through passionate, sparkling, and elegant use of the English language. He wrote speeches for every U.S. Surgeon General from Luther Terry in the 1960s to C. Everett Koop in the 1980s. He spoke of issues that today dominate front pages and news broadcasts: the dangers to young people from smoking; the damage done to individuals and communities by teen-aged pregnancies; the global importance of health as an instrument of development. His ability to translate policy issues into every day images gave Americans information they needed to protect their own health. While working for the Surgeon General in Washington, Mr. Ogden was the co-author of the original 1963 Surgeon General's Report, "Smoking and Health: Report of the Advisory Committee to the Surgeon General of the Public Health Service," with Dr. Luther Terry. That report first officially declared that "cigarette smoking is a health hazard." The following year, Mr. Ogden was primary author of the landmark Report of the President's Commission on Heart Disease, Cancer and Stroke. Dr. Michael Debakey was Chairman of the President's Commission. Mr. Ogden was also the author of a major history of international cooperation to eradicate smallpox -- CDC and the Smallpox Crusade -- published by CDC in 1987. Mr. Ogden was a pioneer in the use of humor as a vital tool of health education. In the 1960s and early 1970s in Washington, he and three other administrators in the Public Health Service wrote and performed musical skits and parodies for audiences of national leaders who could affect public policy in health. Calling themselves the "Ad Hoc Players," the quartet performed in the Washington area and other venues. Together with his colleague Irving Goldberg, Mr. Ogden wrote all of the material, sang and played the guitar. The group's performances were reviewed enthusiastically in the Washington Post on more than one occasion. Michael Kernan referred to the Ad Hoc Players in the January 16, 1969 Post as "'surgeons of satire." Reviewing the group's only record album, Mr. Kernan said "[t]his is a landscape full of beautiful dreams awaiting the princely kiss of financial grants ... a wonderland of bureaucratic logic ... an HMS Pinafore voyage through the shoals of gobbledy gook." Then-HEW Secretary Elliott Richardson wrote to Mr. Ogden about the performances: "Thanks to the Ad Hoc Players for providing once again one of the happiest fringe benefits of a career of civil service." Secretary Richardson wrote: "to Hod Ogden with the enthusiastic admiration of his most appreciative target." Later, Mr. Ogden was the creator of a fictitious health educator from Hyderabad, India, named Mohan Singh, and published two books of humorous maxims and reflections on health and health education under that pseudonym. Mr. Ogden's Maxims of Mohan Singh have been quoted in such prestigious publications as the New England Journal of Medicine, and at many national and international professional conferences. Late in his life, Mr. Ogden explained health educators' need for Mr. Singh: "Among other things, we discovered a profession of marvelously well-intentioned people in serious danger of succumbing to terminal earnestness. Mohan was to prove, in a very curious way, a wondrous cure for this disease." In recognition of this contribution to his profession, in 1988 Mr. Ogden was the first recipient of the Mohan Singh Award for Humor, which is named for his pseudonym and continues to be presented by the Public Health Education Section of the American Public Health Association "in recognition of outstanding use of humor in health education practice." Mr. Ogden was also recognized throughout his profession for his creativity and compassion. "The Horace G. Ogden Medal' is presented in his name each year by CDC to the state or territorial director of public health education "whose work exemplifies the creative and humanitarian qualities which characterized the distinguished public health career of Horace G. 'Hod' Ogden." Mr. Ogden received the first Ogden Medal in 1985. Hod Ogden was born in Rochester, New York, January 5, 1925. His father, Jess Ogden, did pioneering work in adult education and community development at the University of Virginia. His mother was Helen Green. Hod Ogden graduated from DePauw University in 1944. As a young officer in the United States Navy, he served in the Pacific Theater until the end of World War II. He received a Master's Degree in Education from Auburn University in Alabama. In 1951, Mr. Ogden moved to Washington and began his federal career as an educator in the Division of Water Pollution Control, U.S. Public Health Service. In 1955, he began work as a communication specialist with UNESCO. Posted to Mexico, he worked with students from 19 South American countries to help community leaders provide adult education to their populations. In 1958, he returned with his family to Washington, where he worked for HEW until moving to CDC in 1974. After leaving the federal government in 1982, Mr. Ogden returned to Washington where he served as a Regional Advisor in Community Development and Acting Chief, Office of Information and Public Affairs, Pan American Health Organization. While there, he continued to develop international programs of health education and organized the InterAmerican Symposium in Health Education. Mr. Ogden was married to Elaine Celia Condrell, originally of Buffalo, New York, in 1953 and is survived by her. Mrs. Ogden continues to reside in their home in Falls Church. He is also survived by his children, David W. Ogden of Arlington, Counselor to the Attorney General of the United States; Celia J. Ogden of Mountain View, California; Constance 0. Graham of New York City; and Jessica A. Ogden, Ph.D. of London, England, Lecturer in Social Anthropology at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine; and by six grandchildren, Nicholas 0. Gelman, Jonathan S. Ogden, Elaine S.Ogden, Zoe Rose 0. Gelman, Julianna M. Graham, and Christina E. Graham. A memorial service was held January 8, 1998. To remember Hod, the family asks that donations be made to the Grace Dorney Institute for the Study, Treatment and Prevention of Nicotine-Related Diseases, Department of Medicine, Georgetown University Medical Center, 3800 Reservoir Road, N.W., Washington, D.C. 20007. Revised February 17, 1998, Roberta Swenson Health Education Professional Resources ©1996-98 New York University. All rights reserved. URL: /health/healthed/taub/hepr/noframes/whatsnew/35.html |