Academic Medicine Open Forum

This month we celebrate what would have been the 100th birthday of Dorothy P. Rice, a public health statistician and medical economist whose work contributed to the creation of the Medicare program.

While working at the Social Security Administration, Rice published a landmark paper in 1964 finding that half of all Americans aged 65 and over (8.5 million people) did not have health insurance, and that a disproportionate number of the uninsured elderly were: women; of lower income; were in poor health; and spent more time in the hospital than other populations. Her findings contributed to the creation of Medicare.

Rice is credited with other pioneering studies that calculated the economic costs of health, illness, and aging.

While working at the National Center for Health Statistics, she helped create the National Death Index, making it possible to link individuals' health and health care utilization to their cause of death.

At the end of her significant career, while at the University of California, San Francisco, Rice helped estimate the health care cost of smoking. Those findings impacted the legal negotiations happening at that time with the tobacco industry, and contributed to the amount allocated in the Tobacco Master Settlement Agreement.

Rice was born June 11, 1922, and died in 2017 at the age of 94.

 @Katie Maloney, @Arianne Teherani, @Brittney Augerlavoie Have you or any of your colleagues had the opportunity to meet Dorothy during her time at UCSF?

More information on Dorothy Rice:

"How Dorothy Rice Helped Transform Health Care in America and Inspired a Generation of Researchers," Health Affairs

This month we celebrate what would have been the 100th birthday of Dorothy P. Rice, a public health statistician and medical economist whose work contributed to the creation of the Medicare program.

While working at the Social Security Administration, Rice published a landmark paper in 1964 finding that half of all Americans aged 65 and over (8.5 million people) did not have health insurance, and that a disproportionate number of the uninsured elderly were: women; of lower income; were in poor health; and spent more time in the hospital than other populations. Her findings contributed to the creation of Medicare.

Rice is credited with other pioneering studies that calculated the economic costs of health, illness, and aging.

While working at the National Center for Health Statistics, she helped create the National Death Index, making it possible to link individuals' health and health care utilization to their cause of death.

At the end of her significant career, while at the University of California, San Francisco, Rice helped estimate the health care cost of smoking. Those findings impacted the legal negotiations happening at that time with the tobacco industry, and contributed to the amount allocated in the Tobacco Master Settlement Agreement.

Rice was born June 11, 1922, and died in 2017 at the age of 94.

 @Katie Maloney, @Arianne Teherani, @Brittney Augerlavoie Have you or any of your colleagues had the opportunity to meet Dorothy during her time at UCSF?

More information on Dorothy Rice:

"How Dorothy Rice Helped Transform Health Care in America and Inspired a Generation of Researchers," Health Affairs