The Department of Epidemiology at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health is the oldest and among the largest of epidemiology departments in the world. The Department offers extensive educational and research programs in almost all areas of the discipline, including cardiovascular and cerebrovascular diseases, cancer, infectious diseases (including extensive research into AIDS/HIV), occupational diseases, congenital malformations, digestive diseases, aging, and human genetics and genetic epidemiology. Today's faculty adhere to the legacy set down for them in the early days of the Department: They are established scientists of excellent reputation, with extensive training and experience.
The Department's rich and varied history is key to the development of epidemiology in this country as a core discipline in the field of public health. Landmark events include: The Johns Hopkins University School of Hygiene and Public Health opens in Baltimore, Maryland. Dr. Wade Hampton Frost is appointed resident lecturer in epidemiology and heads the newly formed Epidemiology Department. Dr. Frost organizes a conference on epidemiology, held at Johns Hopkins, which plays a major role in encouraging the development and institutionalization of epidemiology in health departments across the country. Wade Hampton Frost becomes the first professor of epidemiology in the United States. The American Journal of Hygiene, based in the Johns Hopkins School of Hygiene and Public Health, publishes its first "epidemiologic number," with articles on yellow fever, malaria, schistosomiasis, hookworm, ascariarsis, diphtheria, and deafness. Dr. Kenneth Maxcy, a 1921 Department graduate, and chair of the Bacteriology Department, succeeds Dr. Frost as chairman of the Department of Epidemiology following Dr. Frost's death. Dr. Maxcy and Dr. John J. Phair organize and conduct a course in epidemiology for the second-year medical class at the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine. Dr. Alexander Langmuir, associate professor in the department, leaves to direct the Epidemiology Program at the National Communicable Disease Center (now CDC) in Atlanta. Dr. Philip Sartwell is named chairman of the department; Dr. Maxcy retires. Drs. David Bodian and Ralph Paffenbarger publish "Poliomyelitis infection in households. Frequency of viremia and specific antibody response" in the American Journal of Hygiene; the reported findings prove to be key in the development of the polio vaccine. The Training Center for Public Health Research is established in Hagerstown, Maryland, under the direction of George W. Comstock, newly hired associate professor of Epidemiology. The center is to be a cooperative enterprise of the Johns Hopkins School of Hygiene and Public Health, the Maryland Department of Health and Mental Hygiene, and the Washington County (Md.) Health Department. The American Journal of Hygiene becomes the American Journal of Epidemiology. The School merges the Department of Epidemiology with the Department of Chronic Diseases, chaired by Abraham Lilienfeld. Dr. Sartwell retires, and Dr. Lilienfeld becomes chairman of the new Department of Epidemiology. Dr. Lilienfeld falls ill while lecturing on "Principles of Epidemiology"; Dr. Leon Gordis is named acting chair. The following year, Dr. Gordis is named chairman of the Department of Epidemiology. The first Graduate Summer Program in Epidemiology, under the direction of Dr. Moyses Szklo, is held at the School of Hygiene and Public Health. It attracts 110 public health professionals. The Department is organized into five program areas: Chronic Disease Epidemiology, Clinical Epidemiology, Human Genetics/Genetic Epidemiology, Infectious Disease Epidemiology, and Occupational and Environmental Epidemiology. Each program has its own director. B. Frank Polk, MD, professor and director of the Infectious Disease Epidemiology Program and a pioneer in AIDS/HIV research, dies of a brain tumor at age 46. Dr. Haroutune Armenian, deputy chair from 1988 to 1993, is appointed acting chair of the Department after Dr. Gordis announces he will step down as chair. Jonathan Samet, MD, MS, from the University of New Mexico School of Medicine is named the sixth chair of the Department of Epidemiology. Epidemiology, a textbook by Dr. Leon Gordis, is published by W. B. Saunders and Company. The Department of Epidemiology celebrates its eightieth anniversary. The Training Center for Public Health Research is renamed the George W. Comstock Center for Public Health Research and Prevention in honor of founding director, George Comstock. | 
