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Collections: Oral Histories

National Information Center on Health Services Research Collection

The National Information Center on Health Services Research and Health Care Technology (NICHSR) is dedicated to improving the collection, storage, analysis, retrieval, and dissemination of health services research. The NICHSR Oral History collection, collected at different times and under different contexts, endeavors to document the lives and careers of physicians, public health administrators, sociologists, and other health professionals who have been involved in the evolution of the field. Complementing this collection is Health Services Research - A Historical Perspective video (2000), which includes footage from oral interviews as well as photos of potential interest. Additional relevant oral histories can be found throughout the other various HMD oral history collections.

In collaboration with NICHSR's History of Health Services Research project, Jennifer Muldoon and Elyse Morelli conducted interviews with leaders in health services research at the 2008 Academy Health Annual Research Meeting (ARM) as part of its 25th anniversary celebrations. Interviews from 2003 to 2004 were conducted by Theodore Brown, PhD, a historian of medicine and health at the University of Rochester, an editor at the American Journal of Public Health, as part of the NICHSR history of health services research project. With one exception, the interviews undertaken in 1998 were conducted by Edward Berkowitz, PhD, the author of To Improve Human Health: A History of the Institute of Medicine (1998), among other works. The interviews form the basis of "Historical Insights into the Development of Health Services Research: A Narrative Based on a Collection of Oral Interviews." The 1988 interview of Philip Randolph Lee, MD was conducted by Dr. Fitzhugh Mullan, Professor of Medicine and Health Policy at the George Washington University School of Public Health on the occasion of the centennial of the National Institutes of Health.

Last Reviewed: April 12, 2017