Allan Rosenfield

Who was Allan Rosenfield?

Allan Rosenfield was an advocate for women's health during the worldwide AIDS pandemic as dean of the Columbia Mailman School of Public Health.

Rosenfield was born in Brookline, Massachusetts on April 28, 1933. He received a B.A. in biochemistry from Harvard College in 1955. In 1959, he graduated from Columbia University College of Physicians and Surgeons with his M.D. degree.

After receiving his medical degree, he worked in Thailand with the Population Council in the 1960s, in a country with a severe lack of physicians and a 3.3% annual population growth rate, providing advise to the ministry of public health on reproductive, maternal and child health issues. The national family planning program Rosenfield helped develop trained auxiliary midwives to prescribe birth control. Thailand's annual population growth rate dropped to 0.8% by the year 2000. His work with the Population Council also took him to other countries in Asia and Africa, where he first realized the difficulties of lowering birthrates in poor countries.