The George Rosen Prize is awarded in odd years to one or more authors/creators of an article, essay, edited volume, museum exhibition, film, or other significant contribution to the history of public health or the history of social medicine published or created in the five calendar years preceding the award’s nomination deadline, i.e. from 2019 to 2024. “Social medicine” here refers to historical efforts to heal, relieve, or prevent diseases arising inherently from social circumstances and is intended to be distinct from the “social history of medicine.” In this context, “social” refers to the perspective of the historical actors and not to the perspective or methods of the historian. Historical monographs are recognized in even years while articles, edited volumes, or museum exhibitions, films, or other significant works are eligible in odd years.   The award will be presented at the annual meeting of the American Association for the History of Medicine, in Boston, Massachusetts, May 1-4, 2025.

The award is named in honor of George Rosen, physician, public health administrator, past-president of the AAHM, and a major contributor to the history of social medicine. The AAHM Council established the award in 2014 thanks to the generosity of Susan Rosen Koslow.

The chair of the 2024-2025 Rosen Prize Committee, Todd Olszewski, welcomes suggestions to consider for the award. Publishers interested in nominating an edited volume must provide a copy to each member of the committee. For mailing addresses, please email the Chair of the George Rosen Prize Committee, Todd Olszewski at [email protected].

Deadline for submissions: 31 December 2024.

Rosen Prize Committee, 2024-2025

Todd Olsewski, chair
Michael Yudell
Hugh Shapiro
Margaret Humphreys
Nukhet Varlik

Recipients:

2024: Sydney Halpern, Dangerous Medicines: The Story Behind Human Experiments with Hepatitis (Yale University Press, 2021) 

2023: Michelle Browder, The Mothers of Gynecology 

2022: Arleen M. Tuchman, Diabetes: A History of Race and Disease, Yale University Press, 2020

2021: Michael Rembis, Catherine Kudlick, and Kim E. Nielsen The Oxford Handbook of Disability History (Oxford University Press, 2018)

2020: Guillaume Lachenal The Lomidine Files: The Untold Story of a Medical Disaster (Johns Hopkins University Press, 2017)

2019: Sarah Leavitt, curator “Architecture of an Asylum: St Elizabeth’s 1852-2017”, National Building Museum, Washington, DC

2018: Nükhet Varlik, Plague and Empire in the Early Modern Mediterranean World: The Ottoman Experience, 1347-1600 (Cambridge University Press, 2015)

2017: Marcos Cueto and Steven Palmer, Medicine and Public Health in Latin America: A History (Cambridge University Press, 2014)

2016: Erica Charters, Disease, War, and the Imperial State: The Welfare of the British Armed Forces during the Seven Years’ War (University of Chicago Press, 2014)

2015: Margaret Humphreys, Marrow of Tragedy: The Health Crisis of the American Civil War  (Johns Hopkins University Press, 2013)