University of California: In Memoriam, 1998
William Griffiths, Public Health: Berkeley
| 1913-1998 | |
| Professor Emeritus |
William Griffiths, psychologist, pioneer health educator, and public health visionary, was born on January 26, 1913, and died on March 22, 1998. He is survived by his wife Sylvie, two daughters, and two sons. Throughout his professional life, Sylvie was a constant source of moral support and editorial assistance. They did, indeed, lead a shared life.
Griffiths had an outstanding career and was internationally recognized for his role as a professional educator, promoter of family and population planning policies, and advocate for health education and chronic disease prevention programs. His former students occupy key positions in educational and public health organizations throughout the world. He studied psychology at Western Reserve University, receiving a B.A. and M.A. by 1937. With this training, he proceeded to Minnesota where he held positions in the university and the State Department of Health until 1944. It was during this period that he honed his skills as an educator and became involved in public health activities, in particular, organizing and directing a critical wartime program on education in social hygiene, i.e., venereal disease control. In 1944, he entered the U.S. Army as chief psychologist for the Neuro-Psychiatric Service at Fort Lewis, Washington. After discharge from the Army in 1946, he returned to Minnesota where he continued teaching at the university while assuming increased responsibilities in the State Health Department. He was the first director of the Division of Mental Health Services and subsequently director of the Division of Public Health Education. In 1951 he received a Ph.D. in psychology from the University of Minnesota. Griffiths
After joining the Berkeley faculty, Griffith's driving energy, behavioral insights, educational skills, and public health experience rapidly gained him recognition in California and the nation as one of the foremost leaders in the field of health education and public health policy formation. Thus, he was appointed to many governing bodies and advisory committees, local, national, and international. Examples include membership on the Boards of Directors of the Berkeley Mental Hygiene Association, which he helped restructure, and the Contra Costa County Heart Association, appointment as consultant and advisor to the California Department of Health Services, president of the California Division of the American Cancer Society, member of the Governing Council of the American Public Health Association, chair of the National Interagency Council on Smoking and Health, member National Board of Directors of the American Cancer Society, and member of an Expert Advisory Panel on Health Education of the World Health Organization. Through his writings and lectures, he set forth principles for the application of the behavioral sciences in public health that he advocated in all of his professional activities. Thus, he helped develop and refine the methodologies of health education, program planning and evaluation, community organization, and group process. He stressed the roles of needs assessment, leadership, and the involvement of people in their own health behavior change.
Griffiths' research was intensely pragmatic. His underlying objective was to explore ways to deliver public health services more effectively to identified target populations, always recognizing the uniqueness of each situation. During the 30 years after his arrival at Berkeley, he sequentially implemented three major projects. In the first, the Navajo Health Education Project, he and his associates explored ways to improve the delivery of hospital and field health services on the reservation. In addition to identifying certain needed changes in delivery systems, a major long-range outcome of this project was the stimulation of the development of a training program for Native American public health workers at Berkeley and other schools of public health. The two subsequent projects were concerned with the development of family planning
Of all the things which Griffiths did in his busy life, he loved teaching most, mentoring, and working with the graduate students who came to him from the far corners of the earth for inspiration and methodology. To guide them to an appreciation of the key questions for an understanding of health behavior and to stimulate them to seek new solutions to outstanding problems was his greatest satisfaction. Applicants for his program far outnumbered the available spaces. But, he was skilled in his ability to select the finest minds, and the practitioners who went away from Berkeley have demonstrated the effectiveness of his judgment.
Griffiths was a modest man, loyal in his friendships, and in all respects a study in excellence and dignity. He received many recognitions and honors in his life, but they are not to be found on his curriculum vitae. Nevertheless, we know that he took particular pride in the Berkeley Citation, awarded to him at the time of his retirement, for this University was his most beloved home.
Courtesy of University Archives, The Bancroft Library, University of California at Berkeley, Berkeley, CA 94720-6000; http://bancroft.berkeley.edu/info
http://content.cdlib.org/view?docId=hb1p30039g&brand=oac4
Title: 1998, University of California: In Memoriam
By: University of California (System) Academic Senate, Author
Date: 1998
Contributing Institution: University Archives, The Bancroft Library, University of California at Berkeley, Berkeley, CA 94720-6000; http://bancroft.berkeley.edu/info
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