Henry F. Vaughan

Henry Frieze Vaughan (October 12, 1889 – March 14, 1979) was an American epidemiologist with a strong discipline in environmental health, an academic professor, and an administrator. Among the positions he held, he was the Health Commissioner for the City of Detroit (1919–1941), editor for “American Journal of Public Health” (1922–1924), President of American Public Health in 1925, trustee of the W. K. Kellogg Foundation (1933–1978), President of Council at the Michigan Department of Council (1939–1960), founder and Dean of the University of Michigan School of Public Health (1941–1960), and the co-founder and first president of the National Sanitation Foundation (1944–1966). Vaughan was born in Michigan and stayed in Michigan for most of his life contributing to the development and innovation of medical and health services in Michigan.

Henry Frieze Vaughan was born in Ann Arbor, Michigan on October 12, 1880, the 4th of five children of Dora Catherine Taylor Vaughan and Victor C. Vaughan, M.D. Vaughan's parents were both from Missouri. His father was a doctor who held the position of the dean of the University of Michigan Medical School for thirty years. In Ann Arbor, he attended Ann Arbor High School and graduated in 1908. At a young age, he was influenced by his father’s interest in public health and sanitation issues. Unlike his brothers who followed his father’s footsteps, he took an alternative route and chose to become an epidemiologist. From then on, he attended the University of Michigan to earn his bachelor's degree in Engineering in 1912, a master's degree in Engineering in 1913, and lastly a doctoral degree in Public Health in 1916 in which he wrote his dissertation on the “Observations on Typhoid Fever in Detroit”. He was the first person at the University of Michigan to earn the Doctor of Public Health degree.

Almost immediately after attaining his Master in Engineering, he joined the Michigan department of Health as a sanitary engineer. He soon was transferred to the Department of Health in Detroit in 1914 and eventually became an epidemiologist in 1915. After attaining his Doctoral degree in Public Health, he was appointed as Deputy Commissioner. During World War I, he was assigned by the Surgeon General William C. Gorgas to serve as the Captain of the Sanitary Corps to control the spread of pneumonia in the U.S. military camps from 1917 to 1918. He returned to Detroit in 1919 and was appointed to be the Health Commissioner for the city of Detroit till 1941.

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