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. 2014 Jan;104(1):47-58.
doi: 10.2105/AJPH.2013.301472. Epub 2013 Nov 14.

Extending public health: the Rockefeller Sanitary Commission and hookworm in the American South

Cheryl Elman  1 , Robert A McGuire, Barbara Wittman
Affiliations

Extending public health: the Rockefeller Sanitary Commission and hookworm in the American South

Cheryl Elman et al. Am J Public Health. 2014 Jan.

Abstract

The Rockefeller Sanitary Commission for the Eradication of Hookworm Disease (1909-1914) fielded a philanthropic public health project that had three goals: to estimate hookworm prevalence in the American South, provide treatment, and eradicate the disease. Activities covered 11 Southern states, and Rockefeller teams found that about 40% of the population surveyed was infected. However, the commission met strong resistance and lacked the time and resources to achieve universal county coverage and meet project goals. We explore how these constraints triggered project changes that systematically reshaped project operations and the characteristics of the counties surveyed and treated. We show that county selectivity reduced the project's initial potential to affect hookworm prevalence estimates, treatment, and eradication in the American South.

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Figures

FIGURE 1—
FIGURE 1—
Distribution of county hookworm infection rates by year sampled.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

References

    1. John Ettling, The Germ of Laziness: Rockefeller Philanthropy and Public Health in the New South (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1981), 35.
    1. Charles W. Stiles, “Early History, in Part Esoteric, of the Hookworm (Uncinariasis) Campaign in Our Southern United States,” Journal of Parasitology 25 (1939): 283–308.
    1. Ettling, Germ of Laziness.
    1. Ibid.
    1. Ralph W. Nauss, “Hookworm in California Gold Mines,” paper presented at the American Public Health Association, San Francisco, CA, 1920.

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