William Herbert “Bill” Foege, MD, MPH (1936–2026) ^†

1. Introduction

Dr. Foege was born 12 March 1936 and devoted his life to the principle that every child and adolescent—regardless of when and where they are born—deserves the opportunity to live healthfully and thrive.

He received a Bachelor of Arts in 1957 from Pacific Lutheran University—Tacoma, Washington; a Doctorate of Medicine (M.D.) in 1961 from the University of Washington School of Medicine—Seattle, Washington; a Master of Public Health (MPH) in 1965 from Harvard School of Public Health—Boston, Massachusetts; and served in CDC’s Epidemic Intelligence Service (EIS), from 1962 to 1964.

His career reshaped global approaches to immunization, child and adolescent survival, and public health leadership, leaving a legacy measured in millions of lives saved and in programs specifically designed to improve the health of newborns, children, and adolescents during critical developmental periods.

2. Advancing Immunization for Children and Adolescents

Trained as a physician and epidemiologist, Dr. Foege rose to international prominence through his pioneering work on immunization strategies. While working as an epidemiologist in Nigeria in the 1960s, he devised a successful strategy (coined “surveillance and containment”) to stop the spread of smallpox.

Later, as head of the Smallpox Eradication Program at the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), he was tapped to direct the CDC’s contribution to worldwide eradication of the disease from 1969 to 1973, which was finally achieved in 1979. It is estimated that 300 million people died of smallpox in the 20th century alone before the World Health Organization (WHO) declared the disease eradicated in 1980, thanks to the ground-breaking work of Dr. Foege.

In addition to being credited as one of the greatest public health achievements in history, this achievement not only eliminated one of humanity’s deadliest diseases but also laid the groundwork for modern immunization programs targeting both children and adolescents, including school-based vaccination campaigns and adolescent booster programs.

Dr. Foege later served as Director of the CDC from 1977 to 1983, strengthening the agency’s global reach and emphasizing prevention, equity, and scientific integrity. Under his leadership, immunization programs expanded domestically and internationally, with strategies affecting children and adolescents, but ensuring broader coverage and protection across all age groups.

In 1987, Bill Foege co-authored an article [1] on the global eradication of polio, which made a compelling argument that led the World Health Assembly to endorse global polio eradication in 1988. Since the 1988 eradication resolution, the incidence of polio has been reduced by more than 99% [2].

3. Building Global Partnerships for Child and Adolescent Survival

Dr. Foege became a co-founder and the first Executive Director of the Task Force for Child Survival in 1984 in Atlanta, Georgia, with five sponsoring agencies—the World Health Organization, UNICEF, the World Bank, the United Nations Development Programme and the Rockefeller Foundation. The Task Force (renamed the Task Force for Global Health in 2005) was an innovative public–private partnership of international agencies, governments, foundations, and non-governmental organizations, with the shared goal of reducing preventable deaths among children and adolescents.

During the 16 years Dr. Foege oversaw the Task Force before retiring in 2000, their work accelerated global coverage of childhood immunizations and promoted integrated approaches to child and adolescent survival, including primary health care, nutrition, oral rehydration therapy, and school-based health initiatives.

Under its original mission, the Task Force helped coordinate global efforts to increase childhood vaccine coverage. Within just six years, partners raised the percentage of children receiving at least one vaccine from roughly 20% to 80% worldwide, an achievement hailed as one of the most significant and the most successful peacetime collaborative efforts ever undertaken [3]. The Task Force continued to honor his legacy by inaugurating the William H. Foege Collaboration Center at its Decatur, Georgia headquarters in 2024.

As the first Executive Director of the Carter Center, U.S. President Jimmy Carter’s nonprofit, public policy institute for human rights and global health [4], Dr. Foege was instrumental in convening the 1989 National Invitational Conference on Comprehensive School Health Programs, which helped establish school health programs as a critical strategy to improve the health and education of children and adolescents [5,6]. These coordinated efforts contributed to dramatic and sustained declines in both childhood and adolescent mortality, setting the stage for healthier adolescence into adulthood.

4. Leading Efforts in Injury Prevention

In addition to Dr. Foege’s enormous contributions to global public health and the control of infectious diseases like smallpox, he also helped establish national means to recognize and control serious non-infectious health problems, such as injury and violence. He chaired the influential Committee on Trauma Research at the National Academy of Sciences, which produced the landmark report, Injury in America: A Continuing Public Health Problem [7], declaring injury (both intentional and unintentional) a serious nationwide health issue that needed systematic prevention research and federal involvement. This report set the stage for establishing the National Center for Injury Prevention and Control at CDC. He would later chair the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services Secretary’s Advisory Committee on Injury Prevention and Control, which developed reviews and recommendations that helped define a national strategy and framework for injury prevention, still in effect today.

5. Educator, Mentor, and Advocate for Adolescents

Dr. Foege’s influence extended deeply into academia through his long association with Emory University in Atlanta, Georgia. As a senior public health leader and later a Presidential Distinguished Professor at the Emory University Rollins School of Public Health, he mentored generations of students, physicians, and global health leaders. He inspired many to develop programs that consider adolescence as a critical period for shaping lifelong health, emphasizing interventions for vaccination, nutrition, and mental and social well-being. He served as the American Public Health Association President in 1986 and was awarded the APHA Presidential Citation in 2002 [3].

Throughout his career, Dr. Foege emphasized that public health is not just technical work but fundamentally involves ethics and fairness. He often reminded audiences that “public health is about social justice”, meaning efforts should focus on equitable health outcomes for all groups, including adolescents transitioning into adulthood, and urged leaders to judge success by outcomes that matter most to families and communities.

6. Legacy and Remembrance

Beyond his extraordinary professional achievements, Bill Foege was a deeply humane and thoughtful person. Colleagues and students remember his gentle humor, quiet wisdom, and ability to make complex ideas feel personal and urgent. He believed strongly in the power of stories to inspire change, observing that statistics represent “human beings with the tears wiped away.” His leadership was grounded in compassion, integrity, and a steadfast moral compass. He often repeated this advice in his many public lectures: “Be good ancestors. Remember that the children of the future have given you their proxy and they are asking desperately for you to make good decisions” [8].

Dr. Foege received numerous honors, including the United States Presidential Medal of Freedom, awarded by President Barack Obama in 2012 in recognition of his extraordinary contributions to global health. Other honors include the Lasker-Bloomberg Public Service Award (2001), the Dr. Nathan Davis Award for Members of the Executive Branch by Presidential Appointment (2002), the National Academy of Sciences Public Welfare Medal (2005), the Albert B. Sabin Gold Medal (2006), and Fellow, American Academy of Arts and Sciences (2022). Yet he is remembered most for his generosity of spirit and unwavering focus on the health of children and adolescents and their families—many of whom would never know his name, but whose lives were profoundly shaped by his work.

In conclusion, Bill Foege leaves behind a world permanently changed by his vision, compassion, and leadership. His legacy lives on in healthier children and adolescents, stronger immunization programs, and generations of public health professionals inspired to develop and disseminate life-saving interventions worldwide. In an opinion for STAT that’s fine [9], he wrote: “…we all have dreams for (the) future, and so we went into public health knowing it was not a great approach to riches, and we also knew it was not likely we would ever be thanked.”

Well, today and forever, the world does thank Bill Foege for all he has done to reduce suffering and improve health around the world, and for his compassion and leadership in reducing preventable illnesses and injuries that we never knew we faced.