Training:
B.A., 1964 (City College of New York)
M.A., 1966 (University of Chicago)
Ph.D., 1976 (University of Chicago)
M.P.H., 1979 (Columbia University)

Gerald Oppenheimer earned a Ph.D.in history at the University of Chicago, later receiving post-doctoral training in epidemiology at Columbia University.

Current Interests

Much of Dr. Oppenheimer's work since 1984 has focused on the HIV epidemic, an area in which he has undertaken both health policy and historical research. Most recently, with Ronald Bayer, he has launched an oral history of the experience of South African doctors and nurses committed to treating people with HIV/AIDS. The study is modeled on their book on American physicians, AIDS Doctors: Voices From the Epidemic (NY: Oxford University Press, 2000). In addition, Dr. Oppenheimer has begun research on a history of the Framingham Heart Disease Study (1948- ), part of a larger work on the history of the development, since 1945, of coronary heart disease epidemiology and its effect on U.S. scientific policy and American culture.

Publications

Oppenheimer, GM, Rosner, D. (In press) Two Lives, Three Legs, One Journey: A Retrospective Appreciation of Zena Stein and Mervyn Susser. International Journal of Epidemiology.

Oppenheimer, GM. (2001) Paradigm Lost: Race, Ethnicity and the Search for a New Population Taxonomy. American Journal of Public Health, 91, 1049-1055.

Bayer, R, Oppenheimer, GM. (2000) AIDS Doctors: Voices From the Epidemic. (New York: Oxford University Press).

Fairchild, A., Oppenheimer, GM. (1998) Public Health Nihilism versus Pragmatism: History, Politics, and the Control of Tuberculosis. American Journal of Public Health, 88, 1105-1117.

Oppenheimer, GM. (1996) Prematurity as a Public Health Problem: Policy in the U.S. From the 1920s-1960s. American Journal of Public Health, 86, 870-878.

Oppenheimer, GM. (1995) Epidemiology and the Liberal Arts: Toward a New Paradigm? American Journal of Public Health, 85, 918-920.

Green, J., Oppenheimer, GM, Wintfeld, DN. (1994) The $147,000 Misunderstanding: Overstating the Costs of AIDS. Journal of Health Politics, Policy and Law, 19, 67-90.

Bayer, R., Oppenheimer, GM. (1993) Confronting Drug Policy: Illicit Drugs in a Free Society (New York: Cambridge University Press).

Oppenheimer, GM. (1991) Causes, Cases and Cohorts: The Role of Epidemiology in the Historical Construction of AIDS, 1980-1989. In Elizabeth Fee and Daniel M. Fox (eds.) AIDS: The Making of a Chronic Disease (Berkeley, California: The University of California Press) 49-83.

Padgug, R., Oppenheimer, GM. (1991) Riding the Tiger: AIDS and the Gay Community. In Elizabeth Fee and Daniel M. Fox (eds.) AIDS: The Making of a Chronic Disease (Berkeley, California: The University of California Press), 245-278.

Oppenheimer, GM., Padgug, R. (1991) AIDS and the Crisis of Health Insurance. In Frederick Reamer (ed.) AIDS and Ethics (New York: Columbia University Press), 105-127.