In memoriam

Geiger, social justice health advocate

H. Jack Geiger, MD, ScD, MSci Hyg, a co-founder of Physicians for Social Responsibility, died in January in New York City. He was 95.

A longtime APHA member, Geiger was awarded the APHA Award for Excellence in 1973 and the Association’s most prestigious honor, the Sedgwick Medal, in 1988. For much of his career, Geiger focused on issues of poverty and human rights, initiating the community health center model in the U.S. and helping lead the development of a national health center network of hundreds of urban, rural and migrant centers.

His human rights work spanned many decades. He was a founding member of the Congress of Racial Equality in 1943 and a founding member of the Medical Committee for Human Rights in the 1960s, serving as field coordinator of the committee’s 1964 program to protect and provide medical care for civil rights workers in Mississippi. In 1961, he became a founding member of Physicians for Social Responsibility, and in 1986, a founding member of Physicians for Human Rights. Over the years, he led human rights missions around the world.

In the early 2000s, Geiger used his years of experience to highlight health disparities in the U.S., contributing to the Institute of Medicine’s landmark report on unequal treatment.

Lockhart, health policy expert

Carol Ann Lockhart, PhD, a longtime health policy and economics expert, died in October in Chandler, Arizona. She was 78.

A former APHA member, Lockhart retired in 2016 as president of C. Lockhart Associates, a health systems relations and policy consulting firm. She also spent many years teaching health economics and health policy at the University of Tennessee and University of New Mexico.

Outside of academia, Lockhart directed three divisions within the Arizona Department of Health Services. She was also one of the original commissioners of the Physician Payment Review Commission, which advised members of Congress on Medicare physician payments. In the private sector, Lockhart served as executive director of the Greater Phoenix Affordable Health Care Foundation, a business and health care coalition.

Within APHA, Lockhart had served on the Association’s Executive Board and as chair of the Public Health Nursing Section. She was also a member of the Arizona Public Health Association.

Seage, pediatric HIV researcher

George R. Seage III, ScD, MPH, a longtime HIV researcher, died in January. He was 63.

For the past 15 years, Seage served as principal investigator of the Data and Operations Center for the Pediatric and HIV/AIDS Cohort Study, a multi-center consortium across the U.S. and Puerto Rico to evaluate the impact of antiretroviral therapy on the long-term health of children with HIV. He also served as the first director of the Massachusetts AIDS Surveillance Program, and on the faculties of the Boston University School of Public Health and the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health.

With more than 200 papers published in peer-reviewed journals, Seage made major contributions to a better understanding of HIV transmission and prevention.

Seage co-authored a best-selling textbook, “Essentials of Epidemiology in Public Health.”

A former APHA member, Seage received a number of honors recognizing his contributions to better understanding and preventing HIV transmission, including the Massachusetts Governor’s Award for Outstanding Contributions to AIDS Research.