Biography of Helene Doris Gayle

Name: Helene Doris Gayle
Bith Date: August 16, 1955
Death Date:
Place of Birth: Buffalo, New York, United States
Nationality: American
Gender: Female
Occupations: epidemiologist, pediatrician

Helene Doris Gayle

Helene Doris Gayle (born 1955) is an AIDS researcher and epidemiologist for the Centers for Disease Control in Atlanta, Georgia.

Helene Doris Gayle is a specialist in the epidemiology of acquired immune deficiency syndrome (AIDS) and the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) in children and teenagers. She is the coordinator of the AIDS Agency and chief of the HIV/AIDS Division at the U.S. Agency for International Development, Office of Health. In her position she has traveled to Africa and Asia to investigate the ways the disease affects different societies and to help coordinate international efforts to study it.

Born the third of five children on August 16, 1955, in Buffalo, New York. Her father, Jacob Sr., was an entrepreneur and her mother, Marietta, was a psychiatric social worker. Gayle was influenced by her parents from an early age, for her parents impressed upon their children the importance of making a contribution to the world. Gayle was also affected by growing up during the Civil Rights movement, and served as head of the African American student union in her high school.

Gayle pursued a bachelor of arts degree in psychology in 1976 at Barnard University, followed by a medical degree from the University of Pennsylvania in 1981. Medical school opened the door for Gayle to the "social and political aspects of medicine," she told Ebony writer Renee D. Turner. After hearing a noted researcher speak on the efforts to eradicate the deadly smallpox virus, Gayle decided to seek a masters of public health, which she received from Johns Hopkins University in 1981. She then began a residency and internship in pediatrics at Children's Hospital Medical Center in Washington, D.C., where she worked for three years.

In 1984, Gayle was accepted to the epidemiology training program at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) in Atlanta, where she focused on the AIDS virus. Her preventive medicine residency at the CDC Epidemic Intelligence Service focused on the AIDS virus. In her various positions at the CDC, Gayle concentrated on the effect of AIDS on children, adolescents, and families. In the early 1990s, she began investigating the global ramifications of the illness. Her position as medical researcher in the AIDS Division of the U.S. Agency for International Development (1992-1995) combined her commitment to public health service with an opportunity to further examine the effects of the virus throughout the world.

Gayle has found that the U.S. African American community, especially its women, is at high risk of contracting the fatal disease. In the late 1980s, African American women made up 52 percent of the female AIDS population nationwide even though they only constituted 11 percent of the entire population. Gayle is an advocate for education as an important tool for the prevention of HIV/AIDS; as she told Turner, "Learning more about the spread of the disease also will provide some ammunition" in combating it. Gayle traveled extensively studying the risk factors which contribute to the spread of HIV/AIDS in her position with the AIDS division for the Agency for International Development.

The author of many articles and studies on HIV/AIDS risk factors, Gayle has received numerous awards, including the Henrietta and Jacob Lowenburg Prize, the Gordon Miller Award, and the U.S. Public Health Service achievement medal. She taught at various universities, including the Emory University School of Medicine, and is on the editorial board of the Annual Review of Public Health. Gayle is unmarried and has no children. As she told Turner, "I don't regret having placed a high priority on a career that enables me to make a contribution to mankind." Besides, she added, "we have no choice but to try to make an impact."

Since 1995, Gayle has served as director of the CDC's National Center for HIV, STD, and TB Prevention. In 2001, she was appointed assistant surgeon general, and she also serves as senior adviser of HIV and AIDS for the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.

Historical Context

The Life and Times of Helene Doris Gayle (1955-)
At the time of Gayle's birth:
Dwight D. Eisenhower was president of the United States
Germany became a member of NATO
Graham Green published The Quiet American
Thomas Mann died
Richard III directed and starred in the film Richard III
Dorothy Hodgkin discovered a cure for pernicious anemia
The times:
Mid-1950s-1970: Pop Art period in art
1950-1953: Korean War
1957-1975: Vietnam War
1991: Persian Gulf War
1992-1996: Civil war in Bosnia
Gayle's contemporaries:
Ken Burns (1953-) U.S. documentary director
Sandra Cisneros (1954-) U.S. Latina writer
Harvey Fierstein (1954-) U.S. gay rights activist and writer
Bill Gates (1955-) U.S. businessman
Martina Navratilova (1956-) Czech-born American tennis player
Mae C. Jemison (1956-) U.S. astronaut
Spike Lee (1957-) U.S. film director
Michelle Pfeiffer (1957-) U.S. film actress
Selected world events:
1956: U.S. Supreme Court ruled segregated seating on buses unconstitutional
1960: Harper Lee's To Kill a Mockingbird was published
1962: Drug Thalidomide was found to cause birth defects
1975: Patty Hearst was arrested and charged with bank robbery
1981: IBM introduced its first personal computer
1985: Actor Rock Hudson died of AIDS
1987: Nearly 50,000 AIDS cases were reported in U.S.
1990: Charter of Paris was signed, formally ending the Cold War