Dorothy Nyswander
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Dorothy Bird Nyswander (1894-1988), was an American health educator She graduated with masters and bachelors degrees from the University of Nevada and a Ph.D. in Psychology from the University of California, Berkeley. She is considered the Mother of Health Education.
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[edit] Professional life and vision
Her career spanned over six decades and several continents. During this time, Nyswander was an advocate for community health and rights. As a single mother, she taught in high school while earning her doctorate. She worked for the Works Progress Administration during the Great Depression; advocated working mothers’ child care while employed with the Federal Works Agency; and promoted preventive school health as the director of Queen’s City Health Center.
In 1943, Nyswander became instrumental in founding the Berkeley School of Public Health. In 1946 she became a full-time professor at UC Berkeley and remained there for nearly 12 years. Following her retirement, in 1957, and at age 62, Dorothy Nyswander then began a 16-year career with the World Health Organization travelling to Jamaica, Turkey, Brazil, the South Seas, and India developing health education programs. She is said to have regretted not getting into politics. However, in her words "but you don't get to do everything you want in this life" (McBroom, The Online Berkeleyan, 1994).
Dr. Nyswander was committed to an "Open Society.” In 1966 she defined an open society as "one where justice is the same for every [person]; where dissent is taken seriously as an index of something wrong or something needed; where diversity is expected; . . . where the best of health care is available to all; where poverty is a community disgrace not an individual’s weakness; [and] where desires for power over [people] become satisfaction with the use of power for people” (Nsywander, The Philosophical, Behavioral and Professional Bases for Health Education, 1982).
[edit] SOPHE
In 1996, ten years after her death, the Society of Public Health Educators (SOPHE) began awarding the Dorothy B. Nyswander Award for Leadership in Health Education for health educators who have demonstrated the professional standards set forth by Nsywander. The first recipient was Helen Ross, former Chair of the San Jose State University MPH Program.
[edit] See also
[edit] References
- P. McBroom (1994). "The Many Lives of Dorothy Nyswander." The Online Berkeleyan. Accessed at http://www.berkeley.edu/news/berkeleyan/1994/1005/nyswander.html
- SOPHE (2005). "Call for Canidates: The Dorothy Nyswander Award for Leadership in Health Education" Accessed at http://www.ncsophe.org/pdf/DBN%20Nominatins%202005.pdf
