Dr. Carl E. Taylor was a visionary guide for the development of international public health as a professional field of study and as a field-based academic discipline, as mentor and inspiration for generations of public health students and professionals from ore than 100 countries, and as a builder of institutions to ensure the continuation of this work. His key message: always start with the “bottom-up” by listening to the community, especially the poorest, the most vulnerable, and the women. Carl passed away on Feb. 4, 2010, but his legacy lives on in all of us.
We share here some of the details of Carl’s important influence in international health, and as a major force behind the founding and development of the International Health Section of APHA, which was one of many influential initiatives undertaken during his lifetime. His official obituary as prepared by his surviving family is reprinted farther below.
Carl was a mentor for many if not most of us in the IH Section: we independently say “Dr. Taylor was my mentor.” He made each of us feel as special recipients of his teachings and provided each of us with individual guidance in our work and careers. That he did so with so many of his students and colleagues was one of Carl’s great gifts.
A large part of Carl Taylor’s vision was to build institutions to carry on the work of International Health into the future. Carl saw APHA as an important force nationally but not internationally: so in 1976 he founded and served as the first Chair of our International Health Section of APHA. That was neither his first nor last success with institution building. Carl was one of three APHA delegates to an international conference in 1967 along with 31 other country public health associations that established the World Federation of Public Health Associations.
To further cite other institutions that owe their existence to Carl Taylor’s vision and leadership: he was Founder and first Chairman of the International Health Department of The Johns Hopkins University School of Hygiene and Public Health until his retirement in 1982 at the age of 65; he was Founder and first Chairman of the National Council for International Health (now known as the Global Health Council); and in 1991 he became co-Founder and Senior Advisor of the international non-profit organization, Future Generations, and the Future Generations Graduate School.
When the IH Section established the Lifetime Achievement Award for Excellence in International Health, Carl was the first awardee, in 1991.
When a group of IH Section members gathered in Boston at the 2000 APHA Annual Meeting to form the IH Section's Community-Based Primary Health Care task force, Carl Taylor was one of the leading founders.
At a seminal session of the IH Section program at the 2002 APHA Annual Meeting entitled "International Health: Where Are We? Where Are We Going?" Carl was a leading provocateur, reflecting on the history of the Section, and challenging IH members to engage in strategic thinking on the future role of the Section.
A taped interview with Carl that is particularly recommended for APHA IH Section members is on Global Health TV when he became the first recipient in 2008 of the Global Health Leadership Award given by the Global Health Council. You can see this online at: http://www.globalhealthtv.com/news/interview_with_prof_carl_taylor/
Carl participated in the key plenary session of the 2008 Annual Conference of the Christian Connections for International Health (CCIH) group, where Carl and Dr. Jack Bryant talked about the contributions of Christians and the Christian Medical Commission of the World Council of Churches to the shaping of what WHO eventually adopted as its global policy, primary health care, in the famous Alma Ata conference of 1978. To see Carl's CCIH presentation, go to the CCIH website at http://www.ccih.org/Working_Groups/Community_Health_WG.htm#1). Carl was also a keynote speaker at the CCIH co-sponsored 2008 Global Missions Health Conference in Louisville, Kentucky. You can watch and listen to his presentation at http://vimeo.com/channels/gmhc
Into his early 90s, Carl remained active internationally as senior advisor for Future Generations and as professor in the Future Generations Graduate School of Applied Community Change and Conservation.
In addition to decades-long work with innovative health reform and community strategies in India, Peru, and other countries, Carl saw and acted on an opportunity to rebuild the health system in Afghanistan in the post-war aftermath of rebuilding Afghan society. In his late 80s, he went to live there as Afghanistan Country Director for Future Generations, where true to form, he broke through standard strategies by going to work directly with Afghan war lords in their villages, helping them to overcome their differences and organize themselves into shura councils to solve joint problems. There Carl also spearheaded new methods for literacy education and empowerment of women in health that led to rapid significant declines in maternal-perinatal-infant mortality.
His children have set up a website where you can post messages in his memory:
http://www.caringbridge.org/visit/carltaylor.
--Laura Altobelli, laura@future.org
--Ray Martin, MartinRS@aol.com
-- Miriam Labbok (2010), labbok@unc.edu