for health care rights, dies
Anita Golden Pepper, a former special assistant to the dean of the School of Nursing and alumnus of the Department of Epidemiology and Public Health (EPH), died April 7 at the age of 73.
Ms. Pepper was well-known in the medical community and beyond for her advocacy of health care as a human right. She was also active in promoting peace and civil rights.
A graduate of Smith College and the New York School of Social Work, Ms. Pepper worked at children's psychiatric facilities in New York and as a caseworker for the Jewish Family and Children's Agency in Chicago before becoming a psychiatric social worker at the Bronx Municipal Hospital/Albert Einstein School of Medicine. She then came to Yale, earning her M.P.H. degree in 1960 and joining the EPH faculty shortly afterwards. Later, as special assistant to the nursing school dean, she helped prepare the school's prospectus for the future. She earned her Ph.D. in public health from Yale in 1972.
During her 12 years at Yale, Ms. Pepper helped conduct basic research into health insurance coverage for members of New Haven-area labor unions that resulted in the formation of Connecticut's first pre-paid group health insurance (later known as the Community Health Plan).
After leaving Yale in the early 1970s, Ms. Pepper directed a federally supported program at the Washington University School of Social Work to train social workers for leadership positions in health services and became professor of epidemiology in nursing at the St. Louis University School of Nursing, where she was the only non-nurse on the faculty.
With her husband, Max Pepper, also an EPH alumnus and former faculty member, Ms. Pepper helped form a coalition called Health Care is a Human Right, whichworked to preserve public health programs from the intrusion of privatization.
After retiring, Ms. Pepper moved to Montague, Massachusetts, where she and her husband lived for more than a decade. She held an appointment as clinical professor at the Tufts University School of Medicine and adjunct professor at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst. The couple was engaged in numerous international activities, including serving as consultants to the Union of Palestinian Medical Relief committees in education, health services and research.
In addition to her husband, Ms. Pepper is survived by a daughter, Sara Pepper-Sullivan of Northampton, Massachusetts; a son, Thomas T. Pepper of Minneapolis, Minnesota; and a brother, Carl Golden of Northwood, New Hampshire. Memorial contributions may be made to the Visiting Nurse Service and Hospice of Western New England, 48 Sanderson St., Greenfield, MA 01201.
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