Albert Lasker
Public Service Award
Theodore Cooper
For implementing in 1972 the National High Blood Pressure Education Program which has contributed significantly to the reduction in deaths from stroke, kidney and heart diseases.
For organizing and developing, when Director of the National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute, the National High Blood Pressure Education Program against hypertension and its frequently crippling or fatal consequences. This program is one of the most successful disease control programs ever undertaken in this country, and has helped to effect a dramatic lowering of the national death rates from stroke, kidney and heart diseases.
High blood pressure is a major factor in 65 percent of all heart attacks and 75 percent of all strokes. It contributes to over 788,000 heart deaths and over 189,000 stroke deaths every year, many of which, with proper treatment and control of blood pressure, are preventable.
The saving of lives from these causes is one of the great feats in the history of preventive medicine in this country, and compares with the national decline in deaths in 1946, the year in which penicillin came into general use.
In implementing this project, Dr. Cooper recruited more than 200 major national and state agencies and 2100 local agencies, as well as lay and professional volunteer groups in a massive campaign to establish education, screening and treatment programs against hypertension.
The generous cooperation of the Advertising Council, the media, and pharmaceutical houses has been a major factor in the increased public and professional awareness of the importance of high blood pressure treatment and control.
For his aggressive leadership in mounting the attack which has so successfully contributed to the present dramatic decline in the overall national death rate, by cutting deaths from heart disease and stroke, this Albert Lasker Special Public Service Award is given.
Elliot Richardson
For his crucial decision in 1972, as Secretary of HEW, to inaugurate a national education program for the control of high blood pressure, a major contributing cause of heart disease and stroke.
Thirty-five million Americans suffer from high blood pressure, the "silent killer" which contributes to almost one million heart and stroke deaths each year. These hypertension-related deaths represent 51 percent of all deaths from all causes in any one year, and on the economic front, cost the nation over $50 billion a year.
Since the launching of the campaign against high blood pressure, the national age-adjusted death rate from heart diseases has declined over 15 percent between 1973 and 1977, and the national age-adjusted death rate from stroke has declined 20 percent during the same period. Furthermore, primarily as a result of cuts in the death rate from these diseases, the nation's 1975 and 1976 overall crude death rates, from all causes, were at 8.9 per thousand population, the lowest in our history.
For his foresight in recognizing a neglected public health need, for his appreciation of the potential cost-effectiveness and human benefits of a successfully carried-out campaign, and for his life-saving decision officially to inaugurate the National High Blood Pressure Education Program—which alerted laymen and physicians to the dangers of high blood pressure and stimulated the use of existing medical knowledge for its control—this Albert Lasker Special Service Award is given.